It was another gloomy morning, but at least it wasn't raining. As I drove south the clouds started to lift and on arriving at Cliff Road it was brighter with some sign of sunshine but a mist out on the Solent and a very fresh southerly wind.
I spent sometime by the bench watching the water, there was a large flock of Brent Geese on the beach and a group of Sanderling flew past, probably flushed from the beach away to the west. On the water was a single immature male Eider and a Sandwich Tern flew east.
I walked down to the visitor centre checked in, then made my way towards the west side. The tide was rising and the drake Goosander was in the harbour snorkeling and fishing, this time quite close in.
The dark and bright colouring of the Goosander always makes it hard to photograph, the exposure constantly changing. This morning it was quite gloomy which made it harder still. In Good light the head is a lovely bottle green, today it appeared black with a hint of green.
It was being annoyed by a Coot and in defence showed off the one advantage it has, the serrated teeth in the bill, needless to say the Coot backed away.
The Goosander headed out of the harbour and I continued the walk around to the sea wall. In the bay there were at least a dozen Common Gull.
As I entered the reserve something must have flushed the Brent Geese from the beach as a huge skein of calling Brent flew overhead.
The first thing to strike me when looking out from the Meon Shore hide was the amount of birds, the scrape appeared to be covered in Teal. In amongst them as well were Wigeon, Gadwall and Shoveler and this single drake Pintail, not a common visitor to the scrapes but always welcome.
Snipe Island was busy, not only Snipe, but Teal and Redshank were roosting, but its the Snipe that grab the attention.
I counted twenty eight to start with, but others continued to join.
It was a case of keep counting as they appear from nowhere, the largest count I managed was 42 Snipe, muy highest so far this year.
Common Gull numbers were good too with at least twenty two adult birds on the water, they too would come and go, probably commuting from the bay on the other side of the reeds.
The island directly in front of the hide was almost submerged, what mud there was visible still held an attraction for this Lapwing, the length of crest probably means this is a male bird.
One of the many Marsh Harriers around the reserve then put in an appearance. Eight were photographed last week on the meadow during the rain storm and a figure of eleven has been mentioned, making it the highest ever here at the Haven, a big success.
This female type cruised down the east side of the scrape.
Then came out over the scrape causing chaos with the Teal and Lapwing.
There were were two other large predators on the scrape although they disn't cause so much panic as they flew out to sea. If these Great Black-backed Gulls were about in the spring they would have caused considerable distress, but at this time of year they are just given a watchful eye.
Snipe could be seen flying around the scrape before returning to the islands, however these two waders looked a little different and turned out to be a couple of Dunlin, a rare visitor to the scrapes at this time of year.
With the Lapwing absent the small patch of mud in front of the hide proved attractive to the Snipe and four dropped on and started to probe with their long bills.
They appeared to be conscious that they were out in the open, but when all the scrape went up they didn't fly off, but just flattened themselves to the mud and hoped the camouflage would work.
Three of the Snipe together.
One by one the Snipe flew off to the safety of Snipe Island. It was a case of watching their posture and waiting for them to take off.
There were good numbers of Shoveler, with quite a few drakes fighting for the lone females, this involved a lot of head bobbing and short flights as they fought off any rivals.
The clouds were gathering and it was now very gloomy so I decided to head for home, despite the conditions I had quite a good morning with the birds on the scrape. Walking around the harbour the tide was high and I stopped to get a view of the Sanderling on the beach.
They were roosing high on the beach as the tide was crashing around the groynes accentuated by the wind. This provided a nice back ground for the snoozing Sanderling.
The crashing waves.
There were several Turnstone amongst the Sanderling, but I could only find one Ringed Plover.
The rain finally arrived as I left for home, but it hadn't been that bad a December day.
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