Hants

I arrived at Budds Farm Sewage Works at around mid day where there were a couple of other birders and negative news on the duck. Had a bit of a scan before looking over at Langstone Harbour and mopping up 7 year ticks in the form of a reasonable variety of common waders, plus Red-breasted Merganser (of which there were 39). The highlight was a flock of 16 Black-necked Grebes which were on the water off the Hayling Island oysterbeds which I could see quite clearly from my perch.
I got a message on the pager saying the bird was still present on the right hand lagoon in the early morning, my spirits lifted slightly and I headed over again to have a look.
It didn't take too long to get onto the drake Green-winged Teal, at last. My 265th British bird and my 2nd lifer/British tick of the year. Arguably a comparatively boring bird but I found it quite interesting, noting (other than the lack of the horizontal stripe across the body and the presence of a vertical stripe on either side of the breast) its slightly greater bulk than its European cousin, although I am not sure whether this was just a trick of the eye individual to this bird.
It joined up with a small group of Eurasian Teal and flew with them to a sedimentation tank where it showed reasonably for a while before disappearing behind to rotor, just before I disappeared to Southsea.

The above bird was one of 11 Purple Sandpipers that showed well for me along the shoreline with a single Turnstone just infront of Southsea Castle, the last year tick of the day, bumping me up to 113.