23rd September - Keyhaven - Lymington Reserve, Hampshire

Autumn is now in full swing, clears skies overnight meant that as I left home for Pennington Lane the temperature recorded 3.5 degrees.  Through the week we had to deal with the remnants of Hurricane Lee and the impact of that was the reason I was heading to the Keyhaven - Lymington reserve on the south coast.  Grey Phalaropes had turned up at Hill Head and Keyhaven, but the decision where to go was the appearance on Friday of a Red-necked Phalarope at Keyhaven, not so often a bird seen at this time of year here in Hampshire.

Arriving in the car park I was greeted by the sun appearing above the horizon.

On reaching Fishtail the light was that lovely autumnal glow.

And this glow was also seen in the birds roosting on the Fishtail Lagoon.

Greenshank with Redshank.

And a Grey Heron.

Looking back as I walked around Fishtail I could see the reason for this beautiful light.

The Red-necked Phalarope had been present the day before in the north west corner of Keyhaven lagoon.  My hopes rose when I looked a long the sea wall and saw several birders looking into the corner.

I made my way over and was told that the Red-necked Phalarope was tucked away amongst the reeds with a group of Dunlin, I moved to the top of the sea wall for a better view and after a short wait it appeared.

Instantly recognisable as a Phalarope from the position and behaviour, although there had been some discussion as to whether this was a Red-necked Phalarope and not just another Grey Phalarope.  For me it was clearly a Red-necked Phalarope.

Clearly a juvenile bird, the immediate feature was the bill, it appeared finer and more needle like, the Grey Phalarope having a thicker and blunter bill.  The Red-necked also sits much lower in the water and appears as here flat backed.

In September the Red-necked is still in full juvenile plumage, they are blacker and darker above than the Grey Phalarope, the Red-necked eye patch also curves down from behind the eye, while the Grey ends squarish and extends horizontally from the eye.

Here it is adopting a position seen in the Wilson's Phalarope a couple of years ago where it lies on the water to pick off the insects.

The Grey Phalarope breeds in the Arctic and winters off West Africa and autumn migrants pass through the Atlantic where they are suspect to being hit by westerly gales, one of the reasons for the influx this week.  Small numbers of Red-necked breed in Scotland and the Hebrides, but virtually all European breeders migrate south east in autumn towards the Caspian and Black Sea, so are not so influenced by autumn storms and are more seen in Spring or on their peak in August.  Maybe this was looking to relocate after turning up earlier, either way it is not an expected record at this time of year.

All of a sudden the Dunlin took off and the phalarope joined them, we then lost it.  As we waited a small group of Dunlin turned up on the mud of the estuary behind us, but soon disappeared, then I heard a call and turned to see a small wader with a very fine bill fly in and drop to the mud behind me.  It was the Red-necked Phalarope and it was close, but the light was absolutely rubbish.

Here you get some idea of the fine needle like bill and the eye stripe curving away from the eye.

And here.

Here the dark upper parts that are dark brown and not the grey of the Grey Phalarope.  Interestingly the Grey Phalarope is known as a Red Phalarope in the US, due to the breeding plumage

This was my first Red-necked Phalarope in Hampshire and completes the set now.

Then some other birders realised the bird was close and crashed through the gate, which frustratingly resulted in the phalarope flying off, back to where it joined the Dunlin in the place it was seen to start with.

Back in its favourite place.

Plus some video of it feeding with Dunlin and Redshank.

I moved to see if I could find it amongst the reeds and it did come out again, but was still distant so decided to move on.  A Grey Phalarope was reported as well and I was looking to see if I could get two phalaropes in one day as I had done back in 2020 with the Wilsons and Grey here at Keyhaven.

I set off towards the east, but stopped as I passed Fishtail.  A Pintail still in eclipse was sitting out of water and was looking quite smart in the morning sunshine.

At the east end of Fishtail a Reed Bunting.

The water levels were high in all the lagoons and where on the last visit there were waders on all the pools today there were hardly any, only Redshank and of course Black-tailed Godwits.

In the fields behind the lagoon were good numbers of Curlew.

Pennington Lagoon is not always stated as such but seen as a part of Pennington Marsh.  It is a long lagoon running immediately east from the Jetty.  The last reports of the grey Phalarope was from Oxey Marsh and I was heading that was, but as I was reaching the end of Pennington Lagoon I met a birder who asked me if the bird feeding on the spit was the Grey Phalarope.  A quick check and I confirmed it was so I walked on quickly to get a better view.

It was feeding in the vegetation around the spit, not a characteristic phalarope behaviour.

Then it flew, with a call that was like "twik", up over the sea wall and fortunately decided to stop on the shore line of the bay and proceed to make its way through the bladder wrack.  I slowly made my way down the beach conscious of the sun and trying to get to the best position which meant getting down to the water's edge, and to start with looking east as the bird fed.

You can immediately see the main differences in this bird from the Red-necked earlier, the eye smudge stays straight after the eye, the upper parts are grey, while the bill ti much stouter that the needle of the Red-necked.

It moved through the bladder wrack, feeding by pushing at the fronds and at times resembled the behaviour of a Turnstone or Sanderling.

 Standing my ground and waiting quietly the phalarope made its way towards me, completely unconcerned by my presence at the edge of the water.

After clambering across the Bladder Wrack it moved into open water and then exhibited more usual phalarope behaviour.

Pecking at insects on the surface of the water.

Back on the Bladder Wrack.

It was a case of firing away and enjoying the view of this delightful little bird that has probably had to endure the stress of very strong winds out in the open ocean.

Some good views in better light of the grey plumage, unlike the juvenile Red-necked the Grey Phalarope soon acquires extensive grey on the upper parts while leaving darker feathers in the wings.

Gradually they will lose the dark feathers and will acquire a pale grey colouring.

To try to get a better aspect of the light I slowly moved to the other side, now looking west at the bird.  As a result it started to come even closer.

At times ridiculously close.

It then settled to preen in front of me.

You can see the darker wing feathers that will eventually turn a paler grey.

A final close up here before it was spooked by a cyclist and flew off towards Oxey Marsh, unfortunately not to be seen again.

So a two phalarope day this time a Grey Phalarope with a Red-necked which was afirst in Hampshire for me.  Elated I climbed back up on to the sea wall and spent some time trying to get some worthwhile photos of the House Martins that were constantly moving through from east to west.

At the end of Pennington Lagoon there is a footpath that leads in land and after that you are on Oxey Marsh with its series of lagoons and shallow pools.  I thought the phalarope might be here but it wasn't, there were though several Dunlin and Ringed Plover and I liked the composition of this sleeping Dunlin next to the rocks and the scene reflected in the still water.

On the next lagoon a Greenshank standing by the bank.

And a little further along a Redshank showing off those orange red legs, they are reflected its not stilt like.

The tide was sort of falling there is a phenomenon of two high tides here at times.  The water was shallow though in Oxey Lake and the Curlew were wading up to their bellies.

On the pools to the south of Moses Dock I liked these images of the Black-tailed Godwits silhouetted in both reality and the reflection in the water.

Through the dock as you can see it was a lovely day now with almost clear blue skies and a deeper blue water.  In the foreground Redshank feeding.

I walked on to Normandy where there was nothing of interest at all.  This Kingfisher flew from the lagoon across the open water to settle on the outflow.

Coming back I stopped at a clump of daisies where there were two Small Copper feeding, the first a lovely deep copper colour.

This one much paler and a little worn.

On Eight Acre Pond the obligatory Little Grebes, this one caught in the dark green water reflections.

Walking back to the car park I searched without any luck for the Cattle Egret.  What was of interest was a Kingfisher flying around the Shoveler pools several times and also pausing to hover.  The pools have been very dry and only recently filled up, so I am not sure what it would find to fish there.

After lunch I decided to head back to Fishtail and Keyhaven, as I dropped down to the path alongside the gully and saw a birder looking back past me.  It turned out there was a Kingfisher there and that it had caught at least eight fish while being watched.

I never made it back to Keyhaven as I stopped to talk with others.  On Fishtail were a couple of Knot.

And while talking there was some aerial action around us.  A Raven flew over several times while in the distance there were at least three Buzzards, a Marsh Harrier, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel and this Peregrine flew through putting up all the waders and small duck on Fishtail.

Offshore there were several Eider and as we walked back to the car park a male Marsh Harrier was in the west corner close to the car park.

A really good day both in birds and weather.