Chris's Country Files: Another Day - Another tour of Hampshire...

Making the most of my week off, I also made the most of an opportunity to go Birding with someone who a) knew some new areas I hadn't seen and b) actually knew what birds we were looking at..

Cant we just call them all Seagulls?? It would make life a lot easier..

This morning I picked Joe up at 8.30 am at Rooksbury, Andover and headed to Chilling, or Solent Breezes or whatever its called.. (just West of Titchfield Haven anyways).

The target was a Red Breasted Goose that was keeping nearly a thousand Brent Geese company..

As we got out of the car at Chilling, a large bird flew through the woods by the car park - and a distinctive 'cronking' noise was heard.. Raven, tick!

Walking along the footpath to the Coast, we saw 13 Waxwing on a telegraph wire and they posed very nicely.. its a bit of a shame that it wasn't sunny, but we still got some good pics and probably got as close as 3 metres to them.

Unfortunately, the Geese had moved on.. no sign of them in the surrounding fields or out to sea..

But from the shore we spotted a male Eider and a group of Red Breasted Merganser.

Joe picked up a Guillemot and a possible Slov Grebe.

A quick look out to Sea at Titchfield didn't bring anything new, then it was a drive to Walpole Park Lake for the Ring Billed Gull..

No joy there, despite a loaf of bread being chucked into the lake and the sky filling with other gulls.

The Mute Swans did their very best at intimidating us into handing over bread, money, in fact anything we had on us...

A quick look in the river / estuary area by the lake offered some Common Gull and a Med Gull.. (thanks to Joe again for pointing them out)... Me and Gulls don't get on..

Farlington Marshes, North Portsmouth, (just off the M27) was our next stop. And we were joined by the rain, so this was a very quick look around a massive expanse of mudflats etc..

There was a few hundred Brent Geese in the field to the left.. No RB Goose with them though..

Joe got us some Avocet on the far side of the inlet.. a nice bonus before we headed back to the car as our bins and scopes were too wet to see anything through.

Lower Test Marshes provided a Water Pipit, Reed Bunting and Stonechat.. and thankfully an end to the rain.

Next stop was what turned out to be the highlight of the day...

Mentioning that I needed a Bittern for the Yearlist, Testwood Lakes suggested, as it was close.. and it didn't let us down.

We were having a walk around what we presumed was the smaller lake (and recent sighting area).. when, on one of the Fishing areas, I saw a speckeld brown bird with long legs out of the corner of my eye..

Not believing what I was seeing I tried to alert Joe, who was a few metres ahead.. Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, was all that came out of my mouth.... As Joe came back, the bird took off and flew a little further along the reed bed..

I was happy enough with that! Its a Bittern, they don't fall in your lap after all.

Anyways, with a look in the right direction we were delighted to get as close as 5 metres away from this bird.. It was slightly obscured by reeds, but am happy enough with these shots!