14th November - Hill Head, Hampshire

 When it comes to birding I pride myself on being the eternal optimist, but this character was being severely challenged when I got up this morning.  The weather forecast on Friday was OK, rain showers coming around midday, but as I turned the light on in the kitchen after getting up I could hear the rain beating against the back door and windows.  A check on my phone, the forecast had changed once again and the radar was showing a lot of red patches.  The journey south to Hill Head was through heavy rain with a lot of standing water.  The optimism kicked in as I came along the Cliff Road as the rain eased and looking away to the east there was even the optimism of a sun rise.

But away to the west it was not so optimistic, heavy grey clouds and the view of the west side of the Solent completely out of view

Ian arrived and we were able to use his van as some form of shelter, it was raining lightly but the strong southerly wind was whipping it in almost horizontally so the van was some form of cover.  The tide was almost up to the sea wall, but there was a open part of beach with a lot of tide line detritus amongst which we could see Turnstones and Sanderling.

Out on the sea there were two Great-crested Grebes and three Eider flew past.  A little bit late there were four Sandwich Terns heading west.  Looking across to the reserve Oystercatcher were seen coming off the south scrape of the reserve and also a surprise number of about 50 Dunlin which headed off out to sea.  The next surprise was a red head Goosander that came down the river and out to sea.

A further five Eider, three males and two female were on the water, then they too flew off  to the west.  As the weather eased a little I decided to go after the Sanderling on the beach.  Making sure the camera was properly covered I got down low on the beach.  The Sanderling were busy ploughing through the sea weed and did not seem to be concerned by me being close.

They were gradually moving along the beach towards the sea wall and away from the beach.

The "clockwork" like running emphasised here.

I couldn't ignore the Turnstones either.

I then moved a little lower to get a better eye level view.

Love the strategically positioned sea shell here

Here the strong wind was playing havoc with the feathers

Here another seashell!

My favourite photograph of the morning's portfolio

Ian counted 29, but looking back along the shore line there was a lot more so the total was probably closer to 40 plus.

Then finally they moved past me on the open sand on the beach.

We then had a short break in the rain and we walked around to the sailing club to check the sea from there.  It was very quiet, only a few Black-headed Gulls and cormorants.  Deciding to come back and check the chalets the rain returned, and it returned with a vengeance.  So much so we had to make a decision.  Normally we would have found a hide somewhere to sit and watch birds and chew the fat, but in these times this option was taken away from us.  The forecast was terrible, heavy rain for the rest of the day, so there was only one decision and that was to call it a day,  The journey home was much the same as the journey here heavy rain and lots of standing water.  Lets hope the weather behaves next week.