Farlington Marshes

A trip to Farlington Marshes today lacked anything remarkably unusual but my first Northern Wheatear of the autumn was a nice surprise and it was interesting watching an immature male Peregrine take a Feral Pigeon while his sister waited nearby.


The undoubted highlight, however, was the splendid juvenile Cuckoo which gave the best views I've ever had of this species and I think it will really take something incredulously special to beat these views; the bird sat obligingly in a bush less than 10 metres away for as long as I was there and jumped down to catch something at one point where it sat with its wings fully open for a couple of minutes.

Hayling Island

Today I took advantage of an opportunity to go birding on the south coast and hopped into Billy Dykes' car at 8.30am bound for Langstone Harbour and Hayling Island.
We arrived at Langstone Harbour at 10.00am and I was greeted by a group of about 20 people who were there for the RSPB walk. I don't normally do these group walks and they're not my sort of thing really but it is nice to do them once or twice a year.

Red-breasted Mergansers and Goldeneyes were immediately viewable as was an assortment of common waders. A Greenshank showed very well providing me with a year tick and there were good numbers of Bar-tailed Godwits which were also a year tick.
One of the several Curlews in the area showed excellently in a meadow next to the footpath.
Curlew

A Common Buzzard circled in the distance and I located two adult Mediterranean Gulls amongst a group of Black-headed Gulls.

Mediterranean Gull

I jumped into a birder's car and the group went over to Hayling Island. 15 Black-necked Grebes were off the oysterbeds. The best bird was soon seen and everyone got distant views of a female Velvet Scoter, a useful year tick. It took off, revealing its white wing panels, and landed with a group of Goldeneye. 3 Common Buzzards and a couple of Kestrels were in the area.

Black-necked Grebes
Velvet Scoter with Great Crested Grebe


3 Rock Pipits showed excellently a bit further along the oysterbeds. Good numbers of waders were around with a few Dark-bellied Brent Geese. I managed to pick out a couple of Pale-bellied Brent Geese, a race-lifer for me. We got slightly better views of the Black-necked Grebes as we moved further up and saw the Velvet Scoter again.

Pale-bellied Brent Geese


4 male and 3 female Red-breasted Mergansers performed stunningly on the oysterbeds, coming at exceptionally close range for the species, at times, and displaying and chasing each other in wonderful light. These are one of my favourite ducks, beautiful and full of character.

drake Red-breasted Merganser

The walk finished and Billy and I got in Sean Foote's car to have a look for the Green-winged Teal for Billy. We soon got to Budds Farm Sewage Works and scanned through the Eurasian Teal for half an hour or so but couldn't get onto the yank. 3 adult Mediterranean Gulls were with the flock of Black-headed Gulls and gave their yelping call as they flew off. My dad soon arrived and drove us back home . . . not a bad day.

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.