Bearded Tits

A post rush hour trip to visit Town Quay in Fareham as there had been a male Eider Duck consorting with the resident Mallard flock. Unfortunately, after an extensive search of the quay and the surrounding areas of the creek, we had to concede that we had dipped. Slowly we made our way back towards Worthing, visiting our regular haunts on the way and finishing up on Pagham Lagoon.

The BBC appears to have lost the plot with the weather forecasts, we at least expected some sunshine but found ourselves with a flock of 11 obliging Bearded Tits in extremely low light levels. Cranking up the ISO doesn't help, resulting in high noise but is somewhat better than a slow shutter speed, considering how mobile these little critters can be.

Anyway the best of the bunch are posted here.

 

 

An interloper

 

The North Wall at Pagham was full of birds, all at a considerable distance. Continuing high water levels in Breech Pool means that the usual winter waders have gone elsewhere to feed.  Finally, on Pagham Lagoon, we caught up with the Goldeneye and a distant and less than confiding Slavonian Grebe that preferred to remain on the opposite side of the lake to us, come what may. Nevertheless a great day out, one day we will have birds in range with bright sunshine.