Tag: curlews

Up To Their Necks

On another wet afternoon we drove to Lymington for printer inks and to Milford on Sea pharmacy and Co-op, diverting to Keyhaven on our way home.

Saltgrass Lane was well waterlogged, even though the tide was not yet high enough for its closure.

Walkers, dogs, and vehicles were silhouetted on the spit against dramatic skies.

Sedate swans, occasionally dipping their benthic burrowing beaks, sailed along the water’s surface.

Skeins of geese honked overhead;

turnstones rested on rocks while

Jackie photographed me photographing them, as the rising tide lapped around them

Nearby she also spotted a thrush (identified by quercuscommunity’s comment below as more likely a rock pipit), curlews, geese, and an oystercatcher.

A hardy human pair spent some considerable time immersed up to their necks in the water, arousing the interest of a pair of swans when they changed into their dry clothes. The last picture is Jackie’s.

This evening we dined on tasty Welsh rarebit, Jackie’s choice chicken and vegetable stewp, and fresh crusty bread, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Macon.

Fishing The Shallows

On a dank-dull afternoon we drove to Milford on Sea pharmacy for a repeat prescription, with a loop round Keyhaven’s Saltgrass Lane on our return home.

Occasional walkers, like this couple looking across the Solent to the Isle of Wight and The Needles, made their way along the sparsely populated clifftop promenade.

We followed a steady jogger along Saltgrass Lane until we paused to photograph walkers and dogs on the Hurst spit alongside which idle sail boats were moored.

Curlews and turnstones (I am grateful to Quercus for identifying the latter in his comment) fished the shallows;

an elegant swan sailed among resting gulls,

one of which passed the time of day with a trailing cygnet.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s especially spicy pork paprika; boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans, followed by aromatic rice pudding laced with a dollop of strawberry jam with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.