SE Hampshire - 21st-23rd August

I’ve been able to get out and about on and off over the last few days and aside from a brief visit to Pennington Marshes I have concentrated on trying to find migrants in the Langstone Harbour area, including Hayling Island and Farlington Marshes. Basically the expected areas such as Northney Paddocks and the bushes at Farlington have contained the expected Warblers such as, Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Blackcap and the odd Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitetroat and Spotted Flycatcher. Yellow Wagtails have been a near constant feature particularly at Farlington. There seems to be poor numbers of waders but the rubbish neap tide is giving them more options of high tide roost sites so they are less concentrated. A single Spotted Redshank is about as good as it has got. Singles of juv Curlew Sandpiper and juv Little Stint were the best of very few birds in the Pennington area on 21st Aug.

The undoubted highlight is the continued presence of two Ospreys in Langstone Harbour which are pretty easy to find but always distant. When they are not flying around, one bird seems to favour South Binness Island and the other uses marker posts (usually a red one) near to the west Hayling shore.

Birdguides Photo of the Week: 4th–10th August

I guess i may as well point out on here that i was very pleased to be awarded photo of the week by Birdguides. http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?mode=potw&rty=0&r=1&v=1&off=313143

In their summary they were also kind enough to say probably the nicest things ever to have been said about one of my photographs. See below:

Although our choice of Photo of the Week is based entirely on the image rather than who took it, regular readers of our PotW citations will have realised that we're always particularly pleased to be able to award people their first PotW, especially it they've been long-standing photo contributors. Bird photographer Richard Ford has been uploading images to BirdGuides since early 2004, at which point his Digital Wildlife website was already up and running. Richard's photography is very focused on the county of Hanpshire and he now maintains a blog of his birding and nature photography forays around that county. This week, visiting Hayling Island in the hope of picking up some migrants, Richard had to settle for pointing his camera at the local Sparrowhawk family sparring with crows. Lack of species interest, though, was more than made up for by some gorgeous evening light bathing the hawks, and Richard's pick of the session definitely made his visit worthwhile. The colour combination of the rich blue sky and the warm hues of the flying bird give this image instant appeal, after which the other qualities of the image start to hit the viewer: great bird, great pose, open bill, steep banking, dynamic angles, superb detail, the list goes on. As we've said before, a steeply banking bird front-lit by low altitude sunlight is a great recipe for successful flight shooting, but Richard's image goes way beyond the basic application of this technique.

Photo of the Week citation (admin), 11/08/11 11:37

Titchfield Haven Roseate Tern, composite image

A composite of three other flight shots

Titchfield Haven – 7th August

After dipping Roseate Tern at Titchfield Haven last week I had been reluctant to make the trek over to Titchfield again for fear of another dipping session. But at least one bird had continued to be reported all week and this morning I felt I may as well give it another go. On my arrival I started to scan the small gathering of Terns on the beach in front of the sailing club to no avail, the tide was high and I expected to have to wait until the large number of Terns in the Solent returned to roost on the exposed shingle as the tide dropped. I could see there were a few Terns on the river and around the island near the visitors centre and so I wandered over to the viewing area and began to scan through them. It wasn't long before I noticed the Roseate Tern in the photographs below. 

SW Hayling Island - 3rd August

I popped down to Hayling again this evening in the hope of picking up some migrants or perhaps relocating yesterdays Cattle Egret, birding was still pretty heavy going and the best I could manage was two adult Yellow-legged Gulls at The Kench. There were also a few Whimbrel and Bar-tailed Godwits in the harbour among other Waders. The highlight was probably the local Sparrowhawk family putting on a good show with up to three juveniles flying around this evening harassing and being harassed by the local crows, as well as playfully dive bombing each other. Unfortunately much of the action was too fast to capture but I did get a few nice flight shots of which this was certainly the best. 

SE Hampshire - 2nd August

Sunset over Langstone Harbour

I dropped into Farlington Marshes this afternoon to see if the high tide roost at the lake had anything to offer. It was quite impressive with thousands of waders roosting here but nothing out of the ordinary.

From Farlington I moved onto The Kench at SW Hayling Island where I was surprised to find a Cattle Egret out on the salt marsh early this evening. It was mobile and unfortunately I lost track of it and didn’t relocate it in the harbour despite looking until dusk.

Cattle Egret record shot