Trip reports

Needs Ore (Hampshire) 17 September

Sunday, 17 September 2006

With an experienced and knowledgeable guide on hand show us around, it was disappointing that only four people turned up for this meeting on a glorious, sunny day. The tour started slowly as the great migration of passerines seemed not to have got up to speed, but then we began to pick out the birds. Spoonbill, greenshanks, spotted redshanks, wheatears, yellow wagtails, late sand martins and even a hobby flying over to the Isle of Wight. Bryan Pinchen is a consultant entomologist (who has surveyed both Normanton Down and Manor Farm) so quite reasonably we spent a lot of time looking down as well. A big find was a "continental" wasp spider taking a grasshopper - matched only by a quick view of a common lizard.
54 species seen, without blackbird, sparrow, chaffinch etc. Derek Lyford