A beautiful September Sunday saw a small but select group
from North West Surrey RSPB join me to explore the lagoons, marsh and
intertidal mudflats of Pennington and Keyhaven, nestled just south of the
wonderful New Forest and with the downs of the Isle of Wight as the backdrop.
Having parked at the rather bijou (small and crowded) car
park, pretty much between the two parts of the reserve(s), we spent the morning
exploring the Keyhaven side including the delightfully named Fishtail Lagoon.
This area of rather shallow water gave us our first greenshank of the day,
three of them to be precise with two following each other closely in a slightly
odd looking feeding pattern, almost sifting through the water as a shoveler
would. This end of the lagoon was otherwise dominated by Canada geese but
walking up onto the sea wall that protects the marsh and peering over the top,
gave us a number of close turnstone and dunlin, very close in fact and
seemingly oblivious to the birders, dog walkers cyclists and children, all noisily
occupying the sea wall path. The chance to look at these waders close up is
always a great thing and brings home just how beautiful these small waders
really are, even in winter (some partially so) plumage; a subtle mix of browns,
blacks, grey's with a range of pale buffs and whites in streaks and scallops
and diamonds. These were joined by ringed plover and the much more wary
redshank.
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| Dunlin |
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| Turnstone |
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| Ringed Plover |
Black tailed godwits are another regular feature, all now
solidly in winter dress and wading through some deeper water and creating
pretty circles in the water as they went.
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| Black Tailed Godwit |
As ever, little egrets were common across both marshes,
comfortably outnumbering the grey heron population.
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| Little Egret |
Having enjoyed the slow walk along the sea wall, it was back
to the car park via the more direct public footpath, sometimes accompanied by
swallows and the odd house martin, stocking up on the local insect life before
the long journey to Africa.
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| Barn Swallow |
Lunch was enlivened by watching various visitors attempt
tight parking manoeuvres in the bijou parking space before heading back towards
the tidal area, but heading east along Pennington Marsh, passing a rare sight
indeed these days, a lone corn burning occupying the hedge along the first
part of the afternoon walk. Other passerines were represented by meadow pipit,
linnet and goldfinch amongst others. Star passerine for the day was probably
wheatear, we had seen one in the morning and found another three towards the
end of the walk, perched expertly on barbed wire and like the swallows, getting
ready for the long journey south.
The tide was on the rise and that was beginning to thin out
the birdlife a little. More close waders were nonetheless still with us, joined
at more of a distance by small numbers of grey plover, some with summer plumage
still partially visible, oystercatchers and curlew. This time, the redshank did
come a little closer.
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| Redshank |
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| Redshank |
Looking much further out, on a long spit heading in the
general direction of the Isle of Wight, half a dozen eider were hauled out just
a little way from the local cormorants. Wildfowl were not a massive feature
today but we also had some young shelduck, two low flying teal and the odd
mallard. Moving further round, we added a lone bar tailed godwit to the day’s
wader tally
In all, we had enjoyed a lot of late summer sunshine, in a
beautiful location and with some excellent and often close birdlife, a nice
start to the 2016/17 outdoor season for the group.
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