South coast birds

Yesterday we drove down to my Grandma's house near Portsmouth. Today we went to Titchfield Haven Nature Reserve and the sea front. Its amazing how much wildlife I saw in the hour or so I was there. The reserve is very near the sea, so the sea birds and the birds in the reserve mix. Gulls of various types are seen overhead in the reserve. And the best thing about today's birdwatching was the fact that the sun was shining!

The water was sparkling with the sun shining on it. The water was clear and it was calm too. It was the perfect day for spotting a few birds. Shame it wasn't like this yesterday for my birdwatch post. The birds were certainly happy to be out and about, and I saw a wide variety of interesting birds. Firstly, we went down to the sea front. I took some pictures of the sea, and you could see the Isle of Wight quite clearly.

After admiring the sea, I saw a group of small wading birds along the shoreline. I watched them intently, and at first I thought they were a group of juveniles of some sort. How wrong I was. I am most unsure about sea bird ID's than any other birds, so a quick look in the bird book told me that the birds in question were infact adult Turnstones. There was quite a large group of them too. While it was a sunny day, it wasn't warm, so these Turnstones were always moving about.

After watching these birds, I simply crossed the quiet road and had a look over the nature reserve. The first thing I noticed was a Cormorant/Shag on a wooden pole sticking out of the water. The reserve is made up mostly of reeds as you can tell from the picture below. My camera is great for what I need it for but it doesn't have zoom good enough to give some very good close-ups of the birds. I didn't however want to edit it to give a closer view because I didn't want to reduce any quality.

I find that some birds are sometimes forgotton by birdwatchers. The Cormorant is (in my opinion) one of these birds. While their colour is at first look quite dull, a closer look will show that they are in fact quite beautiful in their own right. I was struggling to work out if the one in the picture is a Cormorant or a Shag. Please comment if you can tell. Either way, this bird is one that I have never photographed before and actually have never really thought about before either.

After seeing this bird, I moved on and watched some of the ducks of the reserve. I watched them from the bridge where I saw the Grass Snake last time I visited. Click here for the post on that. This time I saw some very different ducks, and one caused quite a bit of trouble when I was trying to work out its ID. This one at first seemed quite timid, but eventually came closer to the bridge where I was watching. It seemed quite happy to be with the Coots.

I really was unsure about this one, so I brought up the topic on Birdforum. I must admit that it is a great service. I have used it before and was very impressed. Before I started using it, I thought the responses would be slow and inaccurate. I was mistaken however, and it is completely the opposite. I would really reccommend that you use it at some point if you are unsure about an ID. I now know that it is a Fulvous Whistling Duck. Now this is surprising. These aren't found in this country so its a real surprise to have seen one. The reply I got on Birdforum was "Looks like a Fulvous Whistling-Duck. Seems a bit far from home"! I looked its picture up on Wikipedia and its exactly right.

Picture of Fulvous Whistling Duck from Wikipedia.

Picture of Fulvous Whistling Duck taken by me.While I was watching some of the gulls at the reserve, I saw a tiny bird flutter out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and the bird was a Goldcrest. It got quite close, but even with my zoomed in camera, it turned out small in the picture. While I was watching it, I lost sight of it several times. They really are tiny. The picture I took isn't great but I was still pleased that I saw it.
We have seen this tiny bird in our garden recently, but I have struggled to get any photos. They generally don't use garden feeding stations so I guess it is mostly luck that I have seen one at home. I will have some more use for Birdforum soon as I check out an ID for another duck I have seen recently. I will post about this soon, and I should have some other photos to show to you as well. An out of season Swan Cygnet was seen too, so I have some interesting stuff to show you.