10th December - Titchfield Haven, Hampshire

I had an appointment in the morning but managed to get to Titchfield around lunchtime to meet Ian.  Where yesterday saw the gloom lift as I travelled south, today it stayed grey and dull.  Walking around to the visitor centre at Titchfield it didn't feel like a day for photography, but anything can happen here.

The tide was out and there were many gulls on the exposed beach and I found in amongst the Black-headed Gulls a single Sandwich Tern.

I met Ian in the Meon Shore Hide.  The water levels were down and all the islands were showing well.  There were seven Snipe on the island but they were very difficult to see.  The gloom and the wet reeds made their camouflage work well.  Here there are two Snipe in the photograph.

The Shoveler were feeding close to the hide.

The Shoveler busily forages head down in shallow wetlands. It has a uniquely shaped bill which has comb-like projections along its edges. These filter out tiny crustaceans and seeds from the water.  You can just make out the comb projections on the side of the bill.

There was a good number of Wigeon grazing on the right hand side bank, the highest number I have seen on the scrape this winter.

Marsh Harrier appeared at the back of the scrape, both male and female birds and there was a very distant Peregrine and Kestrel.  The Water Rail put in an appearance flying left to right in front of the hide, but evading my camera

This Buzzard moved along the scrape fence and would drop to the ground, probably catching worms.

With the strong north easterly wind blowing into the hide it was very cold, so we decided to take a walk out on to the sea wall.  A quick scan found a Great Northern Diver on the water.  The tide was out so we decided to walk down to see if we could get closer.  Along the way we came across the flock of Sanderling.

We picked the Great Northern up on the water.  It appeared to have drifted further away, but then we found the original bird close in and moving to the east.  The second bird was too far away.

We decided to move along the beach and walked towards the Rainbow Bar which meant we had to pass the Sanderling once again.

This one was busy trying to pull up a worm that wasn't giving up easily.

There were also two drake Eider out on the water.

These were the best images we could get of the Great Northern Diver in the circumstances of gloom and high ISO settings.

It kept swimming east but coming a little closer.

We left the diver and went back to the sea wall.  Walking around the sailing club there was a Curlew out on the beach.  Sightings are becoming more regular of what has been a rare visitor here.

Gloom, and a cold north wind made it a very difficult day, but it was nice to catch up with the Diver relatively close in for once.