Botley, Hamble and Titchfield Haven #30DaysWild

Botley starts the last week of #30DaysWild for this year. Last week we worked our way east from the New Forest, across the rivers Test and Itchen, and briefly glimpsed the upper reaches of the Meon. Today we’re doing the river Hamble and the outlet of the river Meon into the Solent.

Once again, I’m using Where to Watch Birds in Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (Betton, 2023) as my reference. He makes no mention of Botley.

Botley – my BBS square

The Breeding Birds Survey, run by the BTO, is one I’ve been doing for over ten years. That implies I’ve been doing it in Norfolk, since it requires a start not too long after dawn! I had some wonderful patches to cover there, Winterton in particular.

My patch in Botley is nothing like that, and not much like the rest of my Norfolk patches either. But it still has a surprisingly wide variety of birds. I can’t give you photos as most of it is on private land.

It goes through a riding establishment (2), from one side of a road, down towards the River Hamble, which is about ten metres wide at high tide, and the tide doesn’t go much further upstream than this. My path follows a hedge and tree-lined ditch most of the way, and that is full of birds including woodpeckers. Then I come back, jump in the car, and go through Botley to the other side of the river, although I never see it again. That has a path through housing, then (7) through a beautiful relatively deep wooded valley with a small stream that feeds into the Hamble, then up the other side onto farmland. I tell you, the noise in that wooded valley of a spring morning is deafening! Robins, blackbirds, chiffchaff, blackcap, wrens, dunnock, finches, garden warblers, blue tits, great tits, and sometimes treecreepers and ravens, too.

I’m lucky to have this patch as It is interesting, but pretty flat, and mostly on easy paths. This year I needed that as I had hardly been out walking at all due to the foot problem (which has eased).

The riding stables have swallows, and pied wagtails. These are the only swallows I’ve seen this year, and I’ve seen no martins or swifts. Esther might be interested in that. There is another small stableyard at the other side of the valley, and that has swallows too, but nowhere near the numbers of last year. Things seem to be dire in their wintering grounds.

The Hamble

Further down the river Hamble there are loads of entries in WTWB, mostly as patches of reedbed that fill bends in the river. It’s tempting to think I could check them out after my bird survey, but I almost certainly won’t. Too much walking.

The Hamble is almost synonymous with serious yachting, include the GB sailing squad. Not surprisingly it is quite well developed at the southern part of the estuary. According Betton there are still plenty of places to watch birds. Yachtspeople seem not to disturb them, unlike other craft, like paddleboarders.

Hook-with-Warsash Nature Reserve is particularly recommended.

The Meon outflow – Titchfield Haven

The river Meon winds its way down from the chalk downs into its own nature reserve, Titchfield Haven. This splendid area of fields, reedbeds, scrapes, woodland, and hides is currently being taken over (we hope) by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, as its former custodians, the County Council, have decided to divest. I’ve been supporting the bid with more than my usual interest. I love this place, and it was the only other place I went walking once we were able to after lockdown eased.

It gets stunning birds, including its own residents (kingfisher, avocet, water rail, marsh harrier). Vagrants and migrant visitors stop in on their journey from a b or c to x y or z. I dropped in to find a glossy ibis and a curlew-billed sandpiper one time last winter. And if I haven’t told you the story about the foxes v water rails I witnessed, well, maybe another time.

I’ll just leave you with some pictures.