Penny and I had decided to combine a necessary errand with a visit to the Sussex coastal village of Bosham, near Chichester. When we arrived, the tide was about half-way up, and the Swans and Mallards were waiting hopefully for tit-bits. Among the Mallards was a lone male Red-Breasted Merganser, who also approached us expectantly, not behaviour I would expect from a fish-eater, but good for the photographs!
We walked around the harbour as the tide rose, until we were opposite Bosham village. Here, a Curlew was wading near the flooded road.
When two rather noisy French boys appeared, the Curlew decided it was time to beat a retreat.
There was one solitary Redshank, and it didn't stay long in the rising water.
Brent Geese were there in moderately large numbers, and were coming and going all the time.
After a lunch in the Blue Anchor, we moved on to Langstone Harbour, taking advantage of a car park about half a mile on to Hayling Island from the bridge. There were plenty of birds here, including Brent Geese, Curlew, Black-Headed Gulls, and a group of about ten Little Grebes. On a tiny spit of freshly-exposed shingle were large numbers of small waders. There were so many that they looked like stones until they moved, which they usually did in unison as a flock.
Closer examination showed them to be Dunlins....
... and among them were a few larger birds, probably Little Stint.
In one of the sheltered ponds were about a dozen Merganser, not as friendly as the one we had seen at Bosham. Here, three males and two females are putting a safe distance between themselves and the camera.
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