After dropping Tobias at school I spent a short amount of time at Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood. At Pennington it was fairly quiet with most birds settled down to breed. I recorded eight Reed Warbler and six Whitethroat on territory around the loop that extends from Lower Pennington Lane car park to the Jetty and then back around between Butts and Fishtail Lagoon – numbers appear to be marginally down on previous years.
A Cuckoo sang from the scrub to the north of Jetty Lagoon, this bird seemingly settled on territory. On the mudflats were 12 Eider and two Whimbrel. On Fishtail Lagoon there were two Little Tern, four Avocet, three Spoonbill, a single Black-tailed Godwit, 15 Dunlin and two Teal. A short walk around Denny Wood produced nine Redstart and a pair of Garden Warbler with a well grown, fledged chick.
I have always struggled with separating the song of Garden Warbler and Blackcap, but having spent some time with the singing bird today at Denny Wood (see recording below) I think I have the differences settled in my head, the song below is fairly different from my recording of a Blackcap.
Female Beautiful Demoiselle – Denny Wood
Garden Warbler in Song – Denny Wood
Avocet – Pennington Marsh
Avocet – Pennington Marsh
Common Tern – Pennington Marsh
Common Tern – Pennington Marsh
Simon Colenutt
I began birdwatching at the age of nine when living on the Isle of Wight. After obtaining a copy of the Isle of Wight Bird Report from 1976 I realised that Manx Shearwater, Arctic Skua, Pomarine Skua and Black Tern were regularly seen at St.Catherine's Point, only five miles from my home village of Chale Green. To a nine year old these birds were near mythical and so I just had to go and try to see them. Little did I know that these birds were seasonal and after a long winter of seeing nothing I eventually started to bump into other birdwatchers as March drew to a close. It was then that Dave Hunnybun, Dave Wooldridge, Paul Castle, Peter Gandy and Audrey Wilkinson introduced me to the art of seawatching and the joys of bird migration, I have not looked back since.
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