Trip reports

Farlington Marshes

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

We headed to the South Coast to visit Farlington Marshes. We had dry weather, a strong cool wind with some sunny periods. The tide was coming in as we arrived. There were a few teal, little egret, black-tailed godwit, grey plover, lapwing and curlew that were quickly pushed off the mud as the water level increased. In the scrub there were green finches, house sparrows and dunnocks. At the pond there were numerous waders. The most numerous were redshank, lapwing, dunlin and black-tailed godwit. We spent some time here as there was a lot of interest. There were up to 8 bearded reedlings feeding on the mud at the foot of the reeds. There were also up to 10 snipe along the reed edge as well. We also found a few knot and a curlew sandpiper amongst greenshank, mallard, teal, shoveler and a few pintail. Eventually we moved on. Our next find was in the main channel. Our first brent geese for the autumn were floating next to a small island, where there were a roost of oystercatcher, little egret and grey heron. There was also a peregrine falcon that had snacked on an oystercatcher a little earlier. A beautiful bar-tailed godwit flew in showing the tail markings. Inland we saw meadow pipit, skylark and a wheater. Between Farlington and Hayling Island there were numerous great crested grebes, wigeon, shelduck, and red-breasted merganser. On the islands there were large numbers of oystercatchers, curlew plus a few cormorants and a great black-backed gull. Inland we found a few linnets. We worked our way back to the high tide roost. Here, we added little grebe to our list. The birds had increased in number. We spotted a water rail that came out of the reeds and a little stint. Our last bird of the day was a kingfisher