Pennington Waders - 13th August

A fairly sunny, but windy afternoon. Highlights were Ruff, Black-tailed Godwits and Yellow Wagtail.

7 of us met at the car park at the end of Pennington Lane. Today’s walk was primarily to learn about identifying waders. After a brief chat about how to identify waders we set off to put theory into practice. We walked along the track to the sea and looked out at the first muddy pool. There were one or two Ringed Plover here, a couple of Black-tailed Godwit with a scattering of Mallard, Moorhen and Starling. A few Goldfinch flew over. There were also several Pied Wagtails feeding on the muddy edges and by scanning through them Lyz found a Yellow Wagtail.
The next pool, Butts Lagoon, had very few birds on too. A couple of Lapwing, an Oystercatcher, Coot, Mute Swan and a Heron with 4 Little Egrets. The next pool, Fishtail Lagoon, is always the best one for waders. Here there were loads of birds. As we got to the pool Lyz saw a Kingfisher fly across it. There were hundreds of Black-tailed Godwit on the island with some Black-headed Gulls. Redshank were scattered around and there were a few Dunlin. On the far side we found at least one Greenshank. A larger flock of Dunlin flew in, about 40 of them, with a few larger waders in amongst them. These turned out to be Ruff, at least 2of them. There were also a couple of Common Tern here. A small group of waders flew over – Snipe – and settled in long grass on the far side of the lagoon. Walking further along this lagoon we got better views of the Dunlins and the Ruff. A little further on and Keyhaven Lagoon had very little on it save for a Greenshank, 2 Black Swan and some Shelduck.
On the way back we saw more of the same, including great views of the Ruff and, on the sea there was a flock of Eider, 22 in all. Also several Turnstone feeding on the seaweedy shore.
Simon Curson