Black-winged stilts return in force to Sussex

Pulborough Brooks, West Sussex Ten slender black and white birds are wading through the water, their red, stick-like legs folding and unfolding

A line of birdwatchers with telescopes are looking out from the Hanger viewpoint towards the grey pools below. Ducks and wading birds swim about or sleep on the banks of mud in the fine morning rain. Pete Hughes, a former warden here at RSPB Pulborough Brooks, and now warden at the nearby reserve at Medmerry, greets me: "The stilts are in the left-hand pool, towards the front."

Nothing else looks like the black-winged stilts. Ten slender black and white birds are wading through the water, their red, stick-like legs folding and unfolding delicately as they dip their long, needle-like beaks in the water. Only one is fully adult - a male - the rest are probably just over one year old.