With a spare Sunday I thought it was time I popped to Pennington Marsh for some late summer birding and the chance of a passage wader or two. Arriving on site at 07:00 I walked out to Jetty Lagoon back around via Butts to Keyhaven Lagoon and the back past Fishtail Lagoon. The bushes were alive with juvenile
Whitethroat and there were good numbers of
Reed Warbler in the ditches and reedbeds. Overhead small numbers of
Swift,
Sand Martin and
Swallow moved west into the wind and a single
Yellow Wagtail called overhead. It was low tide and so the lagoons were not as lively as they could have been, there were around 270
Black-tailed Godwit on Butts Lagoon, nine
Dunlin, 12
Lapwing, two
Greenshank and four
Spotted Redshank. The only ducks of any note were three
Shoveler on Fishtail Lagoon. On the mudflats there were three
Goosander, 15
Ringed Plover and small numbers of
Dunlin while at sea there were ten
Common Tern. The marshes were being terrorised by two
Peregrine chicks and they seemed to delight in flushing the
Canada Geese and
Avocet (five adult) on Fishtail Lagoon.
Black-tailed Godwit - Pennington Marsh
Black-tailed Godwit - Pennington Marsh
Black-tailed Godwit - Pennington Marsh
These Curlew were in a boundary dispute and paced back and forth side by side over the same length of mud for at least five minutes - Pennington Marsh
Oystercatcher - Pennington Marsh
Shoveler - Pennington Marsh
Juvenile Black-headed Gull - Pennington Marsh
