Category: December 2021

I met up with Ian at Inchmery for our WeBS count. Birding highlights included two White-tailed Eagles together out on the saltmarsh appearing quite amorous. It looked like our male G393 and one of the large females, perhaps G547.

Finding the Scaup out in the creek south of the quay, around a mile from Black Water, was a surprise and we enjoyed good counts of 209 Grey Plover and 53 Pintail.

The excitement highlight was getting a call from Alan who was at the Sailing Club watching three Velvet Scoter feeding out on the sea.

We had just finished the Inchmery part of the WeBS count and so we raced back to Needs Ore, thankfully the scoter were still on show as we joined Alan, Simon and Dimitri at the Sailing Club. We had a few minutes of the scoter on the sea before they flew off east revealing their striking white secondaries. A patch tick.

Velvet Scoter breed on Scandinavian coasts particularly northern Norway and they winter along the Baltic Coasts and some reach the south and east coasts of the UK. These three are almost certainly the birds that have been off Brownwich and Hill Head for the last two weeks, only 6 miles to the north east as the scoter flies.

Philip, who was watching the scoter from Lepe as they sat on the sea opposite the Coastguard Cottages watched a fourth fly west through the middle of the Solent well out from Mary Monts.

The Needs Ore part of the WeBS count included the Scaup again on Black Water. Once we’d finished the WeBS count we decided to do a bit of sea watching from Mary Monts. A Razorbill appeared about 10 metres off the shoreline and then a second bird did the same thing. The lack of vertical white line on the bill suggests that this is a 1^st winter bird.

We picked up my Black-necked Grebe from yesterday afternoon which Alan had just seen distantly from the Sailing Club and amazingly a Slavonian Grebe swam in to join it.

I spent an hour at Park Shore looking through the Brent Goose flock. Just like yesterday the geese were in an awkward position just north of Park Farm where I could only get distant views and where the long grass obscured lots of them. I did, however, manage to pick out a Pale-bellied Brent Goose. A pair of Redpoll flew over as I was searching through the geese.

The regular Bullfinch pair flitted ahead of me as I walked along the main hedge. Three Black-tailed Godwit were flushed from Venner South before they headed over to the Gins. After a September peak of 40 birds on De L’Orne Flood it is down to single figures again although in December last year 40-50 birds were seen on Exbury Fields on a couple of high tides.

Behind De L’Orne on the saltmarsh a lovely adult male Marsh Harrier quartered along the river edge and a White-tailed Eagle appeared briefly low down over the river before landing out of sight. The female Marsh Harrier later dropped onto the edge of Venner Wigeon Fields.

On Black Water the 1^st winter female Scaup was still present associating with four Tufted Duck. This was the most active I’ve seen her, she was diving every 10 seconds or so. The first Greenshank I’ve seen for a few visits was on De L’Orne Scrape, presumably here to winter.

Back at the car 10 Skylark flew over Shore Hide heading back towards Warren Shore Saltmarsh.

A two hour sea watch produced a lovely and unexpected Black-necked Grebe, my first winter record of this species at Needs Ore. Other than the summer plumaged bird on Venner in July this is the first Black-necked Grebe at Needs Ore for a few years. They used to winter here regularly often appearing inside the river mouth.

The run of auk sightings continued with another three Razorbill distantly heading east

A group of Red-breasted Merganser (6 female types, one male) were quickly followed by five Eider also heading west (3 males, 2 females).

I had planned to walk out along the spit to check on the Purple Sandpiper, to listen out for a Snow Bunting and to do the Avian Flu checks but the tide was still high (albeit falling) and so there were lots of ducks and geese feeding in the flooded outflow channel and I would have undoubtedly flushed them. I headed back to the Sailing Club instead.

A single Golden Plover and at least five Knot were in amongst the 200 Grey Plover on Inchmery Saltmarsh and a Razorbill showed distantly in the river mouth. Eight Common Gull were roosting almost all of the way to Lepe.

I finished with an hour at Park Shore. A Red Kite was circling over the fields towards Bergerie Farm and there were two Cattle Egrets together in the fields around Park Farm although no sign of anything more interesting in with the Dark-bellied Brent Geese.