Little egret

Mr DawnAgain and I went for another birding ramble today! This time we went for a walk round Thorney Island, part of the Chichester Harbour AONB, near Emsworth, which I'd be wanting to do for ages, I think ever since the guy who built our extension told me about it. We parked at Prinsted, which is a cute little village just outside Emsworth, and headed off round the perimeter of the island, following the sea wall. The island is an MoD base and there are two checkpoint gates where you have to buzz an intercom button underneath CCTV cameras and wait for someone somewhere to let you through. Other than that, though, it's a straightforward seven mile walk along the foreshore, passing through open grassland, scrub and reedbeds adjacent to the expansive wetlands, including the RSPB reserve at Pilsey island.

Mr DawnAgain has gone the full birder now and brought a notebook in which he jotted down all the species of bird we saw, which were as follows: mallard, brent goose, white duck, tufted duck, magpie, goldfinch, red shank, blackbird, crow, collared dove, white dove, blue tit, wood pigeon, mute swan, kestrel, black-headed gull, other type of gull, little egret, curlew, oyster catcher, lapwing, skylark, robin and little grebe. Not a bad haul. Oh, and we also saw some seals!!! Unfortunately they were too far away to get even a halfway decent picture but you'll have to take my word for it that there were five of them.

A jolly enjoyable day and we rewarded ourselves for all our exertion with fish and chips.