Spanish Sparrow et al

After watching the Hampshire Bird news earlier on in the week, I contacted my older sister and invited myself to stay with her on Thursday and Friday so that I could go and see the Dark Eyed Junco in the New Forest and a Ferruginous Duck in Blashford.  It so happened to be a bonus that a Spanish Sparrow was then reported as well.

So, I travelled down on Wednesday night and after a short nights sleep emerged bleary eyed and made my way down to Calshot, arriving there at about 7:45am.  It was not long before the Spanish Sparrow showed, albeit briefly, before hightailing flying to a nearby garden.  As I wanted to fit in as much as possible over the day, I then drove over to Hawkhill Inclosure in the New Forest and again was fortunate enough to observe the Dark Eyed Junco pretty much straightaway.  The stars though in that area were the amazing Crossbills showing off just metres away (the best views I have ever had of them).  Next stop was then Harbridge to observe a Whooper Swan and then onto Blashford Lakes.  Blashford Lakes never ceases to disappoint me when I go there, as their feeders attract a great array of species including Siskin, Lesser Redpoll and Brambling to name a few.  After a brief walk to the South Hide and five minutes of scanning, I found the Ferruginous Duck asleep among some Pochards.  By then, I had achieved 3 new species within less than 2 hours, not a bad start at all.  I then decided to amble back the way I came but via Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes, both of which were slightly disappointing although I managed to clock a few nice species like Red Breasted Merganser, Eider, Grey Plover and Goldeneye.  As dusk approached I hightailed it to Blackwater Arboretum to watch further Crossbills and then Hawfinches coming into roost and the last port of call was the pond at Eyesworth to view the Mandarin Ducks there along with some obliging Marsh Tits.  Only dip of the day was Firecrest, which despite my efforts in different locations just evaded me.

The following day, I was accompanied by my Nephew, who managed to stay quite patient and unbored throughout the day.  As I had covered most of the Forest the day before, I thought I would go east and so we called by see a Cattle Egret in Warblington first of all and then to see 3 Purple Sandpipers at Southsea Castle.  We then made our way over to Camble Docks in Portsmouth to see if we could find an Iceland Gull that had been spending time around a fishery.  Unfortunately after waiting over an hour, we gave up and went to find something to eat and did a spot of shopping.  Before going back to the car, we thought we would try one further time for the Gull and were rewarded with distant views of it on top of a warehouse roof - new species 4 for me in 2 days.  Unfortunately, as locating the Gull had taken us over 3 hours, daylight was slipping away from us and we therefore decided to make one last port of call to try to see a Black Throated Diver at Eling but unfortunately could not locate.

So, overall, two fantastic days birding with only two dips and I returned to my birder's wife very happy indeed.  I was even happier when I discovered that she had bought me some Broadside Ale for my return.