What's out there - recent reports

We have had a number of reports from members as shown below. I am planning to try and set up a Facebook group for Lym Nats so that our members can contribute directly.

 Recently Sandra and Marge saw a warbler, probably a Chiffchaff, in their garden and on the 29^th March a Sparrowhawk nearly caught a female Blackbird.

Chiffchaff

© Richard Coomber

Sam Fenning was delighted to see and photograph this male Bullfinch in her field the other day.

Male Bullfinch

© Sam Fenning

Mary Macmillan took this picture of unusual companions in her garden at Milford-on-Sea on 1st April. The Sparrowhawk returned later that day and this is her account of what happened:

“As I was bending over, digging up some weeds or whatever, I felt something land on my back. Somehow I knew intuitively that it was a bird, it was very light and I had a vague sensation of feet.  Very quietly I asked who it was on my back at which it flew off.  I stood up and watched incredulously as a Sparrowhawk flew away from me!!  I guess it saw me as a good lookout post."

 

Sparrowhawk and a pair of Mallard

© Mary Macmillan

Danish or Early Scurvygrass 

© Richard Coomber

Brian has been walking the seawall at Normandy around Lower Pennington Lane of late and has reported seeing Spoonbills, Avocets, Chiffchaff, Cetti’s Warbler, Barnacle (2) and Egyptian (2) Geese. He found Coltsfoot and Danish Scurvygrass in flower.

The majority of the wintering wildfowl such as Brent Geese and Pintail will have gone by now and once we start getting some more favourable winds we can expect a flood of summer visitors to arrive.

Chris & Diane and John & Jill were on the seawall at the Keyhaven end before lock down and seeing such goodies as Spoonbills and Avocets. When Chris and Diane visited Pignal and Wootton before the tightening of restrictions they found that Wood Ants were particularly active in the warm sunshine and also saw  tadpoles, Common Newt, Bog Beacon. 

Spoonbill about to land

© Chris Robinson

More recently Chris photographed the two Mediterranean Gulls (below) that were amongst a large number of Black-headed Gulls following a tractor ploughing near Hordle. The image is interesting for they are not fully adult as there is still some black in the primaries indicating that they are in fact sub-adults. Another thing of interest is the ring on the leg of the left hand bird - now where was that one from?

 

Mediterranean Gulls © Chris Robinson

Richard Smith has been walking and cycling close to home over in the Ashurst area and also found tadpoles as well as a number of birds including Curlew (which he reported to Wild New Forest), Lapwing, Green Woodpecker, Stonechat, Long-tailed Tit, Grey Wagtail and Treecreeper.  A number of spring flowers were found including Water Crowfoot.

Grey Wagtail © Richard Smith

Water Crowfoot © Richard Smith

Red Fox

© Richard Coomber

At Pennington Richard and Julia have seen Peacock, Brimstone and Comma butterflies in their garden as well as visits from a Heron (who caught a newt), a pair of Mallard, a male Blackcap and a pair of Bullfinches. On some nights a Fox pays a visit. With less traffic passing on the Milford Road they have been able to hear Green Woodpecker and Nuthatch to the south. This is also the time of year to go outside to hear the dawn chorus if you get up early!

Grey Heron catching a newt © Richard Coomber

Geoff and Sue are fortunate to be within walking distance of both Dibden Inclosure and Forest Front nature reserve for the disabled and if they take the "right" route for shopping they pass Hythe Spartina Marsh too. Sightings over the past week or so have included: Buzzard, Curlew, Wigeon, Oystercatcher, Great-crested Grebe and Grey Heron. Their garden has also been good with plenty of bumble bees and the first Ladybird and Red Admirals of the year. Geoff also came across an Angle Shades moth while raking the lawn and their Blue Tits are very busy in and out of the nest box and keeping them entertained.

Angle Shades © Richard Coomber

Jenny Wyles had a pond put in her garden at Awbridge last year and already newts have discovered it as the photo below taken by her son shows.

Smooth Newts © William Wyles

So on to other things:

New Milton Peregrines: It is possible to watch the Peregrines on the New Milton Water Tower live on the internet at http://176.35.217.143 Log-in: water Password: wat3r

 But nobody should try to touch any of the controls as that messes it up for everyone

Another really interesting site involves Wild New Forest set up by Russell Wynn and Marcus Ward. There are regular postings on Facebook and interesting reports on their blog:

https://www.wildnewforest.co.uk/blog

Citizen science stuff for recording in the garden can be found at:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/rspbs-breakfast-birdwatch/

https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust also has a daily blog:

https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/blog

And now for something completely different for one can see when the International Space Station is passing over by looking at:

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

And  to see the Starlink ‘train’ of satellites go to:

https://findstarlink.com

                                                                                                         RC

What's out there now - March 2020 Part 1

With all LymNats walks cancelled until further notice as a result of the dreaded virus and government advice these short notes are intended show what is about and what members are seeing as Spring unfolds.

Adders, Pennington Marsh © Richard Smith

During the last spell of sunshine Brimstone butterflies were on the wing locally and elsewhere in Hampshire people have been seeing the first Wheatears and Sand Martins. Richard Smith has seen Adders down on Pennington Marsh

Two nights ago a Fox was caught on camera at Pennington and this morning a Chiffchaff was feeding in blossom of a flowering cherry.

Chris Robinson was along the seawall from Keyhaven recently and had good views of Spoonbill and Ruff as well as a singing Song Thrush.

Spoonbill landing © Chris Robinson

A male Ruff © Chris Robinson

Song Thrush in full song © Chris Robinson

It won't be long before our wintering Brent Geese leave for their northern breeding grounds and yesterday Richard Coomber found a number of last year's youngsters in the flock grazing in the fields at Cut Bridge. Amongst the spring flowers Early Scurvygrass and Alexanders were conspicuous on the sea wall.

Brent Geese near Cut Bridge © Richard Coomber

Early Scurvygrass © Richard Coomber

Alexanders © Richard Coomber

Have you seen anything you would like to share on these postings? Hopefully we will publish more over the coming weeks. Keep well!

RC 19 March 2020

Walk report: 05 Marsh 2020 Acres Down, Water Levels Up

Richard Smith wrote on 05 March: This morning at 09:10, the Mill Stream below Acres Down was running fast and deep enough that I didn’t think it wise to try and get through - it was well over wellington boot depth when I waded out and I have seen it rise rapidly, to a point where you can be stuck on the other side! So I decided to cancel the walk and we hope to reschedule it sometime in the future.

Forthcoming talks and our AGM 10 & 24 March 2020

Dear All,

I am writing to advise you that following the increasing reports of the spread of the coronavirus your Committee has reluctantly decided to end the winter talks early. We have cancelled the two remaining indoor meetings – this coming Tuesday, 10^th March, and on 24^th March. The AGM will be pushed back into the Autumn programme.

Have we overreacted? Who knows? Only time will tell and hindsight will be the judge. Taking the welfare of our members into consideration I think we will have done the right thing in the long run. I hope that you will agree that this is a wise and sensible course of action.

Certainly our regular field meetings will go ahead as planned throughout the Spring and Summer and I hope you will enjoy as many as possible, although it is recommended that participants bring their own biscuits and don’t share the use of optics such as telescopes.

Hopefully by the time our next programme of talks begins on 22^nd September, with Mike Read’s excellent presentation “Hampshire – Nature in Trust”, this difficult situation will be over.

Keep well and best wishes

Julia

(Chairman)

Walk report: 01 March 2020 Keyhaven Bird Walk

On a bright, dry morning, 17 of us set off from Keyhaven to walk round the sea wall, down to Pennington Marsh and back down the Ancient Highway.

Brent Goose © Richard Coomber

Straight away there was a male Red-breasted Merganser in Keyhaven harbour, quite close in and showing well. A good start. There were two Marsh Harriers over the Avon Water reed beds.

As we walked along the sea wall we could see the results of the succession of storms have had on the shore line. Shingle and seaweed had bee carried over onto the marsh side exposing the concrete footings of the sea defences. I, for one, have never seen this before.

Hovering Kestrel © Chris Robinson

Brent Geese were still about on the water, though probably not for too much longer, along with one Great-crested Grebe and a few Shelduck. On the marsh side there were Stonechats, a Linnet and a pair of Kestrels. The female was perched in a tree but the male was hunting over the grass.

Keyhaven Lagoon had its usual ducks (Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Shoveler and Mallard) along with Curlew, Little Egret and Grey Heron. On the saltmarsh there were more Curlew along with Redshanks and Oystercatchers.

Fishtail was more of the same, with numbers of Brent Geese increasing all the time as they flew in. Coots, Moorhen and one Little Grebe were also present. The three local Barnacle Geese were amongst the Canadas. We got distant views of a Spoonbill flying east, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and a Peregrine. On Butts Lagoon there was a host of Gadwall, RC counted around 100 overall including those on Jetty Lagoon and Shoveler Pools.

The oldest Little Egret  © Richard Coomber

We stopped for our biscuit break at the ‘Jetty’ where the turnstones were turning what seaweed and stones were still there. A Rock Pipit was around along with Reed Buntings. Nowadays one tends to take Little Egrets for granted, but the one in the ditch near the Jetty was rather special for it was the oldest known on its kind on the BTO database. It had been ringed as a chick by Graham Giddens in 2006 and can be identified by the colour rings – left leg – orange and the letter J, right leg yellow and N.

Light-bellied Brent Goose © Richard Coomber

We walked down towards the Lower Pennington Lane car park. On Pennington Marsh there were Golden Plovers galore, ditto Lapwings and three or four Ruff. A passage of Lesser Black-backed Gulls was a quite unusual sight, but at this time of the year they should be returning from wintering in foreign parts. The local Starling were giving a mini-murmuration!

With the Brent Geese flock in the field north of the car park was an immature Light-bellied Brent Goose, the race that breeds in Greenland or Arctic Canada. On the way back along the Ancient Highway there were Goldfinches, a singing Great Tit and, by the Lower Balancing pond, a singing Cetti’s Warbler.

And it didn’t rain! CR