c11/07/2021-Pennington
We had a lovely walk at Pennington today, with the fields carpeted in ragwort as the first picture I took today in this photoset shows, mudflats beautified more by purple sea lavender as the fourth picture I took in this photoset shows and the reeds a delicious lush green colour just like the trees and grass. It was interesting to note the consistency of my last three days at Lakeside, Knepp and here with ragwort doing very well and giant bindweed coming out well at all three which shows how connected nature really is with these three locations quite far from each other bursting into these colours in unison. Skylark with its stunning melody would open and close the walk, the first we had done at Pennington since the Easter weekend. I really enjoyed seeing Swifts skillfully gliding through the air walking down the old trip towards Fishtail lagoon as we did the whole walk and as we do so often see here at this time of year. I took the second picture in this photoset of a view here too. I enjoyed seeing adorable Little Ringed Plovers on Fishtail lagoon with some appearing young.
There were also adorable baby Shelducks on this lagoon about half a dozen with a beautiful adult, great birds to see they looked like tadpoles by comparison of the huge lagoon, great little balls of fluff. I managed the sixth picture in this photoset of one, alongside another photo I tweeted on Dans_Pictures. It was a strong flower walk too with bright red poppy which I took the third picture in this photoset of and white campion which we saw a lot of today brightening up the grasses beside fishtail lagoon. We would also see some exquisite looking brown Linnets here today, a fantastic shade in their strong pallet of variable colours. Other nice flowers to see today included lots of broad-leaved clovers nicely, hawk’s-beard, sorrel, probably carrot, yarrow, lots of pink mallow, silverweed and lovely chamomile.
I took the fifth picture in this photoset of our dog Missy and the seventh of Keyhaven lagoon. The emperor of the reedbed as it quite often does flew up and soared over Keyhaven lagoon when we got there, a pretty and ferocious Marsh Harrier being mobbed by gulls we got some amazing views of it. Coming back beside fishtail lagoon and it was lovely to see more Swifts flying over and Sand Martins too. This made it the four species of Swift and the three hirundines that I had seen well over the course of four days which feels like a great summery thing to celebrate. As well as Avocet, Oystercatcher in the eighth picture in this photoset and Little Egret among the many birds put up by a helicopter and flying well over our head with amazing views we saw Common Terns flying getting towards the end of the lagoon along the path. Today was the first time at the coast for me since Anglesey two weeks ago and the last night there at Cemlyn where we saw the sensational terns including many common so this was nice. Another bird we saw in Anglesey Eiders made a nice sightings today too in offshore bits of land. I took the ninth picture in this photoset of a view out to sea. Then getting towards the jetty was got a fantastic view of a dainty Little Tern shooting through the sky with its mustard bill and cute white stature.
We then headed back to the car and some more floral delights awaited us on the way going into grassland. A white variation of mallow, as well as possible silverweed, self-heal, buttercups, a few of the ones seen earlier, my first centaury and some prominent and pretty Purple Loosestrife. We got our best view yet this year and first time landed in 2021 of a rich orange Gatekeeper butterfly on some vegetation really getting to make out this typical summer species. We saw Meadow Brown well on the walk too. There were some great landscape focal points of beautiful things to see today, like Sway Tower which I’d never got in a picture before, the Needles which I got a zoom in picture of, Hurst Castle and Hurst Spit looking nice. A really nice Sunday walk for us. When home as well as taking in interesting sky scenes later on I liked seeing my first love-in-a-mist and sweet William flowers in the back garden alongside oxeye daisies and others, adding some fantastic colour and flair to the flower areas. It was a phenomenal, packed and wonderful wild weekend for me again one of my best of the year with the football too even if England sadly couldn’t quite go all the way but it was some wonderful memories. I hope you all had a good and safe one.
Wildlife Sightings Summary: Three of my favourite birds the Great Crested Grebe out to sea nicely, Little Egret and Shelduck, one of my favourite butterflies the Red Admiral, Marsh Harrier, Linnet, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Swift, Sand Martin, Blue Tit, Goldfinches well again today, Mallard with ducklings too, Eider, Tufted Duck, Coot, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit with some nice and bronze coloured, Avovet, Oystercatcher, Lapwing well today, Curlew, Little Ringed Plover, Canada Geese well today with one making a great splashing noise in the water just outside the lagoon very close to us which was special, Common Tern, Little Tern, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull I had a great day for gulls seeing them fly over really well too, Peacock butterfly, Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown.
