Tuesday 9 August 2011

August 9th 2011

A cracking day
I finally caught up with the “space shed” as she passed over the garden, the second brightest object in the night sky to Jupiter with its four moons. Had not intended star gazing but the recent blustery conditions and rain made for a clean atmosphere and ended up having an hour wandering the universe – magic.
A poor moth catch so I was ready for Bob when he came round and we managed 2 Blackcaps in the car park at the pond before we wandered down to a very blustery farborough spit where there was a partial summer plumage Sanderling showing well with 2 Dunlin, 2 Little Ringed Plover and 2 Ringed Plover for company plus 29 Swift overhead.
Decided to take a break from the windy conditions and searched the more sheltered south east corner where we came across a number of young birds ending up with 22 Long-tailed Tit, 2 Garden Warbler, 4 Willow Warbler plus 2 Common Blue, 5 Speckled Wood, 20+ Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and Large White butterfly also Banded Demoiselle, Ribon Wave and Yellow Shell.
Bob moved on to walk his circuit so I hung around finding Reed, Sedge and a few more Willow Warbles before Bob notified me he was looking at the Wood Sandpiper in toft bay.
I managed distant views preferring to leave the bird to the photographers and concentrated on the sky finding 15 more Swift, 40+ Sand Martin, Raven, Hobby, Peregrine and 11 Buzzard, Bob came up trumps again finding the Black-tailed Godwit by the windsurfing picnic area.

Redshank



Black-tailed Godwit by Bob Hazel

Others birds seen included 4 Yellow Wagtail, 5 Common Sandpiper, 8 Teal, 5 adult, 3rd year and first summer Yellow-legged Gull, 200 House Martin, 200 Swallow, 9 Graylag, Jay, Green Woodpecker, Lesser Whitethroat and Whitethroat.

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