My car was due in the garage and was to be left there for the day. Charlotte followed me down and we drove from there to visit Lymington and onto the Normandy Marshes. It has been very wet over recent days and there was flooding on the roads, but no problem accessing our usual parking space. The forecast was for the sky to clear and perhaps some sun to appear. Although dry, the sun had yet to make an appearance.
On the water were teal, wigeon, shoveler and mallard but that was no the initial interest; a pair of stonechats were hopping across the top of some bushes and as I watched out popped a Dartford warbler. No sooner than I was on it than it dropped down and into some gorse. We waited until it showed again, and did it show - a couple of minutes of heaven. It fed through the gorse popping out occasionally and finished with a flourish, landing on top of a stalk and looking around for the next meal. And gone.
We walked around Normandy Lagoon and now could see ever larger numbers of dunlin, ringed plover and a few turnstones. A. single grey plover snoozed on the water's edge and as I put Charlotte on the bird a little egret flushed all the birds around that area and the grey plover was lost from view. A single bar-tailed godwit was asleep in amongst the lapwings while a dozen or so black-tailed godwits fed frenetically in the shallows.
On one of the remaining islands stood a bar-headed goose, initially asleep but then preening, hardly pausing for breath. The waders and lapwings suddenly arose but no raptor could be seen to explain the massive departure. The flock then spun around the lagoon and out over the sea, returning in smaller flocks of about 50 all around us - magical. We continued on around the corner adding a handful of snipe to the day count but found nothing else of particular note.
We made our way back and around towards Keyhaven but about halfway ran into an increasingly heavy rain shower - this wasn't the plan. Families stopped to put. on stronger rainproof clothing and our trousers started to get wetter. After a few minutes it became clear that we'd need to head back to the car or be soaked for lunchtime.
We'd booked a table for lunch at The Mayflower pub and made for there, half an hour ahead of when we were scheduled - there was no need to wait for our slot and were soon warming up with lunch. I looked at my phone to find that a short-eared owl had been reported not far from where we'd turned back due to the rain and about the time we'd have been in place - damn.
After a nice lunch we jumped into the car and went down to the other end of the Keyhaven Marshes and had a nice walk but there were no added opportunities for photos or additional species, but the sun had come out – a better day than having to be at work.
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