Nature Notes for w/e Dec 5th
8 December 2011
Portsmouth & Portsdown
Ten purple sandpipers were at Southsea Castle on December 1st.
Travellers joy (old man’s beard), musk mallow, tansy, musk and spear thistles, field forget-me-not, ploughman's spikenard, ox-eye daisies, burnet saxifrage, small scabious, yellow-wort, wild parsnip and round-leaved cranesbill were all in flower on Portsdown on 1st.
Highlights of the Wildlife Trust walk round Farlington Marshes on 2nd included two groups of bearded tits, a short-eared owl and 18 avocets. The latter were on the mud just north of Kendall’s Wharf. There were 2 owls and 19 avocets there on 3rd.
Also on 2nd a stag beetle larvae was found under a log in a Portsdown garden.
Fungi found on Portsdown this week included yellow fieldcap and field blewitt.
Havant Hayling & Emsworth
Two slavonian grebes were in the Broadmarsh area of Langstone Harbour on 30th November.
On 1st Dec. a great northern diver and a slavonian grebe were seen in the channel off the Lifeboat Station on Hayling Island.
A flock of 600 Brent geese on the fields of Warblington farm on 2nd marks a new stage in their winter routine. Eighty stock doves and 4 reed buntings were in the same area this week. A little owl has been seen on the farm buildings recently.
A short-eared owl was hunting on the Eames farm fields Thorney Island on 2nd.
Cherry plum and common broomrape were in flower in an Emsworth garden on 30th and small-flowered cranesbill in Juniper Square Havant on 2nd
On 3rd there was a single large group of 17 Sandwich terns north of Black Point Hayling Island.
A hare was spotted north of Woodland Lane east of Stansted on 3rd.
On the same day 22 golden plovers were on the mud east of Langstone village.
Ten or more redwings were seen in bushes at Northney on 4th when 13 red-breasted mergansers, 4 Mediterranean gulls, knot and greenshanks were off shore.
A peregrine was on the shingle bar north of The Kench on 4th.
There were again 2 spotted redshanks at Nore Barn this week.
A stubble rosegill fungi was on Budds farm mound and the pretty wrinkled peach on a log near the end of Mill Lane Langstone this week. The Saturday walks group found stinking dapperling in fields east of Stansted.
Fareham and Gosport
Three black-necked grebes were seen in Fareham Creek on 2nd. Other birds present included 30 black-tailed godwits, great crested and little grebes.
A great white egret which arrived mid-morning on 3rd at Titchfield Haven was still there at midday.
Four ravens flew out from Titchfield Haven, back to Lee on Solent and then off in the direction of the I of W on 4th.
