#calshot

Boat-tailed Grackle at Holbury 18th November 2025. It was exhilarating to see this transatlantic stowaway, the bird highly thought to have arrived at Calshot where it was first sighted by ship given the proximity of Calshot to Southampton Docks. I thought my chance had gone to see it with it disappearing prior to the first weekend I had to look for it but thankfully it has relocated to a residential street in Holbury. It was surreal to see it emerge from garden shrubbery bursting onto a fence then coming onto the ground in and around the garden to feed and into a bird bath before eventually immersing itself deep back in the sparrow filled bush. It's reminiscent (though not related) to our corvids, slightly familiar, yet bringing an alien and exotic charm.

Sunset at Calshot Hampshire🏖️

A huge Southampton-bound container ship passes behind beach huts on Calshot Spit, as seen from Gurnard, Isle of Wight. 

18/01/2025-Mallow leaves, views and stunning White-tailed Eagle, Black Redstart and Red-legged Partridge at Calshot and view looking down a channel of water and scentless mayweed at Lepe.

The White-tailed Eagle was a sensational sighting, it's the first time since the Isle of Wight reintroduction programme beginning that I've managed to see one of them in Hampshire having seen them on boat trips in Dorset and on the Isle of Wight a few times as well as being lucky to see them in Scotland including Mull over the last few years and seeing one that turned up in Hampshire in 2011 years before the reintroduction. Today I think managing to see one just on a relatively local Saturday afternoon walk brought it home that hopefully in years to come these magnificent birds will be a more common sight in the south of England which feels me with optimism.