It was mainly a family weekend with Steve's clan down for the weekend but I did a couple of hours at the Bill on Saturday morning HERE- three Arctic Skuas were the highlight and on Saturday afternoon we went out on a fishing trip into Bracklesham Bay with the kids. Surprisingly very few birds- just 5 Common Scoters and a few Med Gulls, Sandwich and Common Terns but we caught quite a few fish.
Today after catching up with work we spent a few hours at East Head on the beach and I was keeping my eye out as there were 9 Poms in the Solent, first hanging around the Hampshire mouth and then slowly they made their way through with several seen past the Bill. I didn't pick up any from East Head but was pretty distracted. The guys also had a Long-tailed Skua off the Bill so obviously Spring is still uncoiling out there.
This evening I had a quick look at Ferry and walked to Mill Lane and back HERE. Not much changed since my last visit- an increase in Blackwits to about 20 on Ferry, the Snipe and a couple of Shoveler are sitll there and there were still about 26 Whimbrels out in the harbour with a few Grey Plover, Knot and Dunlin too.
Arctic Skuas (above and below) chasing a Med Gull below. Arctic Skuas in this part of the world winter offshore Southern Africa and globally breed across the whole of the Holarctic and winters across the southern oceans. Poms have a more restricted global breeding range (not on Iceland, Greenland or Fenno-Scandanavia but across the rest of the high Arctic) and they also have a wider wintering range, even wintering in the North Atlantic and everywhere south too down to the Southern Ocean.
Sanderlings- there were still a few waders moving. Similar to Turnstone, Sanderlings also have a near cosmopolitan wintering range but all breed in the high Arctic so birds migrating north past here now could basically come from anywhere south down to South Africa.
Adult and third-summer Great Black-backed Gull
Plenty of young birds around now- Dunnocks here
The moth trap has picked up as the temperatures have gone up a bit again. Spruce Carpet was new for year
The first Satin Wave this year
Nice to get the first Cream-spot Tiger of the year . Now on 463 for the garden and 137 for the year
This decent Starry Smoothhound was our prize catch on the fishing trip (actually caught by Iris who caught more than all the boys together)
We got quite a few of these Lesser Spotted Catsharks
Apart from all the sharks the only other type of fish we caught was this Black Bream
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