Normandy and Pennington again.

Spent the afternoon on the South Coast. Third time in four weeks! Making the most of the sunshine amongst some really smart birds. 

After avoiding it successfully for almost 3 years, Covid-19 finally came knocking and got me last week.  Not impressed!

Thankfully the cold and the headaches had eased mostly by the weekend and I headed down to one of may favourite places to get some fresh air and spend more time with birds we don't get in Berkshire.

In a slight change to the normal way I do things, I headed to Normandy lagoon first.  Normandy is at one end of the magnificent Hants and IOW Wildlife Trust reserve - details here click

Spoonbill had been listed this week, plus the usual array of wildfowl. It wont be long before one of the best ducks, the Wigeon will be leaving us to head back to it's summer grounds.  I needed to hear their wonderful whistle calls a few more times before they leave. 

Plenty of wigeon, shelduck, teal and brent geese still present. But no Spoonbill...

Brent Geese

wigeon

Still amazes me that avocet are now common here

Lymington - Yarmouth ferry.

Wigeon and Greenshank

Spent a bit of time listening to and watching these Black Tailed Godwit, who really weren't getting on!

They fought, like men with chopsticks, for about 10 minutes.

Haven't seen any Goldeneye for a few years, so it was nice to see this trio on Normandy.

Goldeneye

Greenshank

Pintail

Teal

Cormorant

A lone Red Breasted Merganser

After an hour on Normandy lagoon I drove around to the end of Lower Pennington Lane and called in on Fishtail Lagoon.  A trio of Ruff were feeding in the flooded field next to the Car Park, just up from the Shoveler Pools. A Marsh Harier was also flying around on the other side of the Ancient Highway.

Ruff

Lapwing

Fishtail lagoon was actually quite quiet, and hard to observe anything as the sun had gone behind a big black cloud and everything became a silhouette.  Running out of places to look for the spoonbill, I headed to Oxey Marsh, and then they all started to drop in.  

Firstly four birds, then another four, and then 3 more.  I managed to get a picture of eight together.  I think that's the most I've seen together in the UK so far!

Spoonbill

Grey Plover

For a dull bird, they looked great in the low sun

The rear spoonbill, 'having a moment'.

Back at the car park, and this smart male Ruff was feeding.

A good day.