There are a few local birders who regularly visit Holmethorpe Sand Pits but there is no formal group or club for the area.
We always like to see new faces in the area but please, if you visit, do not stray from the public footpaths or viewing areas. Much of the area is managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust and, although all their managed areas are viewable from footpaths, incidents of trespassing have occurred in the past. This causes the local birders considerable grief.
Other areas, such as Mercers Farm and the land we refer to as Nutfield Ridge are arable and grazing areas respectively, but there are footpaths that cross both sites.
Mercers Country Park, which contains Mercers Lake, has limited viewing (from the eastern end by the Aqua Sports Centre is the best spot) but there is a footpath that circumnavigates the lake. Please keep to this path. There are anglers' jetties by the lake and a slipway by the Aqua Sports Centre but these are strictly out of bounds.
Despite these limitations, we hope that you decide to pay Holmethorpe SPs a visit, it is an important birding site in Surrey.
Like any land-locked patch, you may not see much during a single visit but Holmethorpe boasts an impressive site list, with of 207 species being recorded since the early 1960s. Scarcer species, such as the following, have all recorded on one or more occasions:
Great Northern and Black-throated Divers, Red-necked, Slavonian and Black-necked Grebes, Shag, Bittern, Great White Egret, Spoonbill, Bewick's and Whooper Swans, Bean Goose, Ferruginous Duck, Scaup, Eider, Long-tailed Duck, Common and Velvet Scoters, Marsh and Hen Harriers, Goshawk, Honey Buzzard, Osprey, Peregrine, Avocet, Grey Plover, Knot, Sanderling, Little and Temminck's Stint, Spotted Redshank, Wood Sandpiper, Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls, Iceland and Glaucous Gulls, Kittiwake, Black Tern, Long-eared and Short-eared Owls, Nightjar, Hoopoe, Wryneck, Rock and Water Pipits, Waxwing, Cetti's, Grasshopper, Wood and Dartford Warblers, Bearded Tit, Willow Tit, Great Grey Shrike, Common Redpoll, Hawfinch, Snow Bunting and Corn Bunting.