30th October - Hayling Island Oyster Beds and Farlington Marshes, Hampshire

I couldn't get out until the early afternoon but had the time to head to the Oyster Beds at Hayling Island.  A female Long-tailed Duck had been reported and through this year has been a bit of a bogey bird.  Unfortunately it remains a bogey bird for 2023 as there was no sign of it anywhere, but I did get to witness some amazing wader action.

An extremely high spring tide and flooded a lot of the roads and was covering almost all the available wader roost sites at high tide.  I can not the call ever having seen the water as high as it was today.  As a result waders, mostly Dunlin were flying around trying to find suitable dry spots on which to rest.

It was gloomy and there was the threat of rain so the pictures are not the best and unfortunately stills never seem to convey the dramatic nature of the scenes unfolding as the waders tried to find some refuge

Here Dunlin

A wider view of the spectacle.

On the islands the larger waders such as Grey Plover, Redshank and Oystercatcher were taking the prime spots.

Every so often chaos would ensue and the Dunlin would just take off.

Greyt Plover unmoved by the attempts of Dunlin to join them.

This Curlew was happy with its spot amongst the grass.

The Grey Plover still unmoved.

The Oystercatchers take the high ground while the Dunlin are left to take the areas closer to the rising tide.

With rain coming I decided to head back to the car where I sat out yet another heavy shower, filled up with cheap fuel and then drove to Farlington.

It was still raining when I arrived at the bottom car park and all around the skies were a very dark grey.  The radar app didn't give much confidence, but we were in a quiet spot which might allow me some time to see the Short-eared Owls.

I left the car in dry weather and headed towards the Lake.  A Kestrel was hunting the grass bank of the sea wall and allowed quite a close approach.

The water level on the Lake was very high and this probably accounted for a count of twenty Tufted Duck.  This drake sticking close to the reeds.

There were plenty of Wigeon, Teal and Pintail, but for once I concentrated on a group of Gadwall that were displaying and fighting over females close to the sluice.

The Kestrel I had seen earlier remained just a head of me as I walked around the sea wall.  Eventually it decided to stop hunting and rest on one of the fence posts.

As I approached Point Field I could see two Short-eared Owls high above the field being mobbed and escorted once again by the local Carrion Crows.

They remained high in the sky as I walked around the point to the east side and arrived just in time to see one fly down onto the marsh and rest on one of the many ant hills.

I was able to get a little closer by moving around the sea wall.

But then it flew a little away across the marsh to another ant hill, fortunately not too far away.

Something caught its attention and it stood up tall to check out what ever it was.

It constantly checked the area all around it.

Those piercing eyes

It then flew further away and I returned to Point Field where there were other still flying.  Unfortunately the light was not brilliant and to get the shutter speed it was necessary to compromise with a high ISO as well which reduces the detail.

If one gets to close to another, then there is an altercation, but it doesn't last too long and they resume there quartering of the marsh.

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One then settled on one of the white posts that mark out the path through the field

This particular owl was very dark and definitely not one of the owls seen last winter.

Again it was gloomy so I tried to play around with reducing the shutter speed to lower the ISO as the owl was very still, it did produce some better images.

The last three being those I was happy with.

A lovely afternoon when the weather threatened to derail my plans, the one disappointment was not seeing the Long-tailed Duck, but it was offset by the amazing sights at Hayling with the waders and then the Short-eared Owls, of which there were five today.