SE Nature Notes w/e 14th Nov

Portsmouth & Portsdown

On 6th a fresh painted lady butterfly and a red admiral were seen on the beach at Southsea.
A marsh harrier and 7 avocets were at Farlington Marshes on 7th.  On 10th the harrier was seen again and pintails, a green sandpiper and 3 bearded tits were also there.
In Wednesday’s sun meadow brown butterflies and a dark bush cricket were spotted on Portsdown.
A razorbill was off shore at Southsea on 11th and a guillemot off the SW corner of Farlington Marshes on 12th.  Eighteen greylags flew over the reserve and landed on the RSPB Islands that afternoon.
On 13th the Farlington Marshes marsh harrier  was seen yet again and a rock pipit was on the sea wall. A group of 27 avocets were on Mallard sands near Kendall’s wharf.
Small scabious and knapweed continue to flower on Portsdown but more remarkable is alexanders in flower on London Road on the south face of Portsdown.

Havant hayling & Emsworth

Curlews have begun to feed again on fields at Wade Court.  37 were there on 7th.
A Pallas’s warbler was seen briefly on the Billy Trail in Langstone on 7th.
Birds at Sandy Point included a Lapland bunting and a ring-tailed hen harrier on 7th; a house martin, swallows, siskins, redpolls and a brambling on 9th; and a short-eared owl, 2 black redstarts and 3 redwings on 12th.
A firecrest was seen at Sinah warren on 7th and 11th, a black redstart on 11th and a wheatear on 9th.  A short-eared owl hunted over the golf course on 12th.
Also on 7th a shag was on a buoy at the Langstone Harbour entrance.
The Thorney Island cattle egret continued to show well this week and was still there on 13th when 5 short-eared owls were quartering the marsh at dusk.
On 10th a green sandpiper  was on the concrete ledges of the Budds Farm lagoons.  A greenshank and 4 redshanks  were also present.
Birds of interest on the Thorney Island Deeps on 12th included a goldeneye, 28 pintails, 62 golden plovers, 2 jack snipes, 3 spotted redshanks, 41 greenshanks,  8 water rails, a kingfisher and a Sandwich tern.  A flock of 300 lapwings was there on 13th.
Three rock pipits  were seen at The Kench on 12th when 46 red-breasted mergansers (right) and a Sandwich tern were off shore.
A common scoter wand 3 black-necked grebes were off the oyster beds on 12th.
On the same day a woodcock flew from West Lane Hayling Island towards the Billy Trail.
Among the unexpected wild flowers seen this week were lesser celandine by Bound Lane Hayling and burnet saxifrage in Havant Cemetery.

Fareham and Gosport

A hen harrier at Cherque, Gosport on 12th could not be re-found on 13th

Waterlooville and South Downs

Two white squirrels were at Sandy Dell Purbrook on 7th.
Around 40 bramblings were among 300 chaffinches at Queen Elizabeth Country Park on 8th.