The last seven weeks have been extremely hectic, but there has been some time for birdwatching as well.
On the 21st September, I visited Hengistbury Head on an extremely windy and rainy day. I failed to find the wryneck which had been present for several days, and migrants in general were very few and far between. The bird of the day was a late(ish) Arctic tern that flew past the Beach Huts there, my first in Dorset.
On the 27 September, I had a far more successful trip, this time to Normandy and Keyhaven Marshes in Hampshire. On Normandy Marsh, I found three ruff, five greenshanks, two bar-tailed godwits and three spotted redshanks among large numbers of the more common wader species, including several grey plovers. Nearby, a field was swarming with meadow pipits and yellow wagtails, the latter numbering at least seventy. This magnificent, but rapidly declining, summer visitor no longer breeds in Hampshire, but still passes through the county on their migration south back to Sub-Saharan Africa. Overhead, a bar-headed goose passed. This species is regularly recorded as an escape in Britain and is famous for being reportedly seen migrating over Mt Everest, as it makes its way from countries such as Kazakhstan and Mongolia, south to the Indian Peninsula for winter.
As we headed towards Pennington Marshes, a first calendar year little gull passed on the sea, and several wheatears were found. Sadly there was no sign of the long-billed dowitcher on Keyhaven Lagoon.
My only other trip out of school since then was to a site in the New Forest on the 14th October. There, I heard a crossbill fly over, saw a hawfinch over and what seems set to become my final swallow of the year passing through.
On the 6th October, I had my first day at home since the beginning of September. There was a clear passage of meadow pipits passing over, and with them was a single yellow wagtail, my first at Hilfield. I have also seen my first redwings of winter at Hilfield, but no fieldfares yet- it's only a matter of time!
