More heavy rain on the way.

Monday 8th December 2025.

This Buff-tailed Bumblebee was nectaring on this Penstemon plant near where I stood in Pembroke Road.

Another weather warning from the Met Office for this week as heavy rain and strong winds are set to batter the south coast again. The Met Office have named it Storm Bram and is set to come in overnight and into Wednesday. You can forget about doing a sea-watch from Gilkicker again this Saturday too!! It is bound to be empty of birds as well.

The week got off to a reasonable start in Pembroke Road this week as the weather wasn’t too bad this morning and bird species got into double-figures too.

Pembroke Road, Old Portsmouth:

A dark and overcast start to the day in Pembroke Road.

Up to 13 species were recorded this morning with pick of the bunch going to a very low flying flock of 3 Cormorants flying over the road and heading southbound and a small flock of 5 Brent Geese heading east over the Curtain Moat area. On arrival, there must have been around 30+ Herring Gulls on Governor’s Green searching for worms on the sodden grass, which was a good count.

Both Dunnock and Robin were heard calling and the House Sparrows were seen several times in their usual hedge by the Bowling Green. I managed to grab a photo of the Buff-tailed Bumblebee nectaring on a small cluster of flowering Penstemons that were growing in a nearby flowerbed. The extremely mild temperature of 12 degrees is still encouraging the insects to be on the wing and I have even seen a few Garden Spiders around too.

This Rusty-dot Pearl was perched on a window.

On my travels around lunchtime, I found a Rusty-dot Pearl moth perched on a window on a Retirement Building. Moths are still out and about and I do keep an eye out for outside lights on buildings in case a Moth is perched.

In Hampshire today:

Fellow ‘Lazee Birder’ Gary Fennemore had a good selection of bird sightings around Hayling Oysterbeds this morning with sightings of 2 Marsh Harriers on the Binness Islands, Med Gull, Raven, Black-necked Grebe (sadly, numbers have really dwindled of this species over the last few years here in Langstone Harbour), 2 Whimbrel, Great Northern Diver and up to 5 Goldeneye.