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| Little Egret © Richard Coomber |
After the high
winds and driving rain of the previous day it took an act of faith to turn out
for the walk along the sea wall at Keyhaven. But the weather was good, with
even a hint of sun now and again and no rain to speak of. Thirteen of us set
out from the car park to do the round circuit of sea wall and Ancient Highway.
Those of us who
got there early got a glimpse of one of the Merlins that are around at the
moment at the Keyhaven end. There was also a Migrant Hawker dragonfly, possibly
the last we will see this year.
Along the sea
wall we saw Linnets, Stonechats and Brent Geese. Out on the Solent there were
rafts of Wigeon and a few Eiders, mostly females. The Peregrines and, briefly,
a male Marsh Harrier showed themselves. On the marsh side we saw small flocks
of both Skylark and Meadow Pipits.
We walked
further along and saw more of the migrant ducks that we expected (Gadwall, Wigeon,
Pintail, Shoveler, Shelduck and Common Teal). Out on the seaward side there
were flocks of Dunlin and Turnstone, Grey Plover singletons and the odd Ringed
Plover. Richard picked out one Golden Plover, hopefully the advance guard for
the usual large flocks we usually get.
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| Roe Deer © Richard Coomber |
On Fishtail we
saw our first Ruff (a male with large amounts of white plumage), looking very
much like several we saw last year. We took this as a cue to have the biscuit
break.
At this point
half the group headed back via the old tip, but some of us continued round
Butts to the so-called ‘jetty’. On the Solent there was a pair of Eider, the
male in full plumage – very handsome. On Butts Lagoon we saw Common Snipe. As
we got our collective eyes in we saw more and more. There must have been at
least twenty, but snipe being snipe, they were difficult to count with any degree
of certainty.
As we turned
left and headed towards the car park at Lower Pennington Lane we saw that on
the flooded fields there were quite a lot of Lapwings and about half-a-dozen
more Ruff.
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| Rock Pipit © Chris Robinson |
Heading down the
Ancient Highway we saw two Roe Deer wandering about on the marsh and a Raven
feasting on a dead goose. A Peacock butterfly flew over. As we got back to the
cars a Rock Pipit obligingly wandered up and down the harbour wall were someone
had deposited the remains of their lunch.