Sunday 27th November 2022.
Yesterday, it was arranged by Andy Friend for an open invitation for a 'sea watch' from Gilkicker, at the southern end of Gosport, from 8am to 10am and after all the seabirds that have gone through the Solent this week, I thought it was a good call. However, the weather forecast was not looking all that promising with rain forecast all morning. The Meteorologists most certainly got that wrong yet again, as it virtually dried up all the time we were there, but it was very murky over the Solent looking over towards the Isle of Wight.
Nevertheless, it was a good 2hrs seawatch as we notched up some rather interesting array of birds and what with a reasonable turn out of 7 ‘Lazee Birders’, the banter was superb again. Unfortunately for me, I was up at 4am and could not fall back asleep and so, by 5am, I was downstairs getting ready for a damp bit of birding; or so I thought! I got myself a flask ready for this morning and by 7am, I was on the road to Gilkicker.
I arrived at the car park at Gilkicker around 7.45am and joined both Andrew and Michaela Dickety and then walked with them to the shelter. From here, we were lucky to have a female Common Scoter sitting on the sea right in front of us and there it remained all the time we were all there. More Common Scoter were seen during the time there including a group of 3 birds heading east and a pair heading west. The sea state was very calm and with hardly any wind blowing, so viewing anything on or going over the sea was going to be relatively easy; especially with Andy Friend's BTX Swarovski scope to hand, which is nicknamed ‘The Telly’(due to the view through it being so crystal clear!).
Up to 4 individual Red-throated Divers went through, all heading west; though apart from one fairly close bird, all were very distant. To be honest, visibility across the Solent wasn't brilliant and my camera struggled to get any decent images of the passing birds. We were hoping for yesterdays’ Sooty Shearwater to make another appearance, but I think we all knew that was going to be an extremely long shot. Andy Friend did picked up a fine adult Little Gull some half way out across the Solent. As it flew east, the bird occasionally settled on the sea and then flew off again.
Where there were Little Gulls, surely Kittiwake's cannot be far behind and lucky for us, at least three birds were seen going past including one adult bird that took an interest to a small boat with some guys fishing from it. Among the Common and Black-headed Gulls in front of us loafing on the sea, a lone adult Mediterranean Gull swam with them. A few Brent Geese went through as well as a single adult Shag, all heading east and a few Pied Wagtails on the beach were not happy with a dog playfully chasing them. All in all, a reasonably good morning's birding from Gilkicker for a change. At nearby Hill Head, three Velvet Scoters were resting on the sea
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