Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood - 8th June

After dropping Tobias at school I spent a short amount of time at Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood. At Pennington it was fairly quiet with most birds settled down to breed. I recorded eight Reed Warbler and six Whitethroat on territory around the loop that extends from Lower Pennington Lane car park to the Jetty and then back around between Butts and Fishtail Lagoon - numbers appear to be marginally down on previous years. A Cuckoo sang from the scrub to the north of Jetty Lagoon, this bird seemingly settled on territory. On the mudflats were 12 Eider and two Whimbrel. On Fishtail Lagoon there were two Little Tern, four Avocet, three Spoonbill, a single Black-tailed Godwit, 15 Dunlin and two Teal. A short walk around Denny Wood produced nine Redstart and a pair of Garden Warbler with a well grown, fledged chick. I have always struggled with separating the song of Garden Warbler and Blackcap, but having spent some time with the singing bird today at Denny Wood (see recordings here) I think I have the differences settled in my head.

Female Beautiful Demoiselle - Denny Wood

Avocet - Pennington Marsh

Avocet - Pennington Marsh

Common Tern - Pennington Marsh

Common Tern - Pennington Marsh

Church Norton, Titchfield Haven and Crockford Bridge - 4th July

I had not had a chance to go birding for an age, mainly saving my brownie points for an upcoming trip, but I had the morning spare and there were a couple of local rare's that had been present for some time and I had to go and see them. My greatest success was the Greater Yellowlegs at Titchfield, I had seen this a couple of times before but on both occasions my views were somewhat distant and I came away thinking that these needed to be improved. So when I arrived and the bird was feeding on the Meon and visible from the road I was pleased. The bird showed well for around an hour feeding on crabs and small shrimps in the shallows. The bird is now moulting with many of its wing feathers being replaced but it still looked pretty dapper in its monochrome checked and streaked plumage and those crazy yellow legs.

Greater Yellowlegs - Good views at long last

Greater Yellowlegs with young Shore Crab

Greater Yellowlegs - The bird mainly fed along the shoreline but also waded up to its knees where it frequently fed with a sweeping motion a bit like an Avocet 

Back tracking now, I had arrived at Church Norton early in the hope of seeing the Hudsonian Whimbrel that had been present since 9th June, I stupidly forgot to pack my scope but when I picked up a distant Whimbrel and got a nearby birder with a scope onto it that whacking supercilium and dark rump gave the bird away as the Hudsonian Whimbrel. Unfortunately the bird disappeared into a gully and I did not see it again in two hours of waiting. Still, a leucistic Curlew added some interest - again through somewhat distant in the heat haze.

Curlew - A rather odd looking leucistic bird

I then had to pick up my sister from the IOW ferry but had an hour or so to spare so popped into Crockford Bridge to look for some dragonflies.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Beautiful Demoiselle

Southern Damselfly

Southern Damselfly on Marsh St. John's Wort

Keeled Skimmer

Large Red Damselfly