Pennington Marshes - Sunday 9th Sept

I know some will have already read this but I thought I would put it in the correct folder now - Phil F

Well much against my better judgement (actually the judgement of ½ a bottle of red wine and 3 pints of lager) Mary and I were out on Pennington Marshes at 0700 hours yesterday. It was a beautiful morning and the fresh air blew the cobwebs away. There were not too many winter migrants in yet, but there was enough birdlife to keep us happy with cormorants, little grebes, oyster catcher, herons, egrets godwits, dunlin, dunnock, redshank, curlew and a whole host more. The only one not making an appearance yesterday was the kingfisher but you can’t have everything.

We also saw some fish in one of the creeks just cruising up and down on the surface. I think they were grey mullet but I really can’t be positive. If anyone has any ideas please let me know!!

The crowning moment for both of us though was when we spotted a beautiful Roe buck 20 – 30 metres away on the marshes. He just stood there looking at us until he had had enough of the “staring competition” and then just went on his way. Another highlight was watching a herring gull catching a decent size spider crab and then drop it on to the concrete to open. I had only seen this on TV before so to see it live was pretty cool.