#hawkhill

Eleven of my favourite photos I took in November 2025 and month summary

The photos are of; sun shining through trees and frosty gate post at Lakeside Country Park, view at Hawkhill in the New Forest and view including a nice sky at Lepe, Blue Tit at Blashford Lakes, Green Woodpecker at Lakeside, Long-bodied Cellar spider at home, gorse at Lakeside, soft shield fern at Blashford Lakes, turkey tail at Hawkhill and false death-cap at Acres Down in the New Forest.

As the days got shorter, the trees got barer and cold weather crept in at times key moments of another brilliant wild month were seeing a trio of birds I either hadn’t seen for ages or had never seen; my first exquisite Great Grey Shrike seen for half a decade in the New Forest and two I never envisaged seeing in the wild in Hampshire the exotic Scarlet Ibis and the bubbly Boat-tailed Grackle. Other key birds seen this month included a bird of prey fest of the Tawny Owl in the New Forest again, Peregrines, Merlin, Kestrel, Buzzard, Red Kite, Marsh Harrier and Sparrowhawk as well as Dartford Warbler, Cetti’s Warbler, returning Redwings and Fieldfares, Siskin and the also warmly welcomed back waterfowl of winter including Brent Geese, Wigeons, Pintails, Pochard and Goldeneye as well as Gadwall, Teal, Shoveler, Shelduck and Egyptian Geese. Raven, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Goldcrest, Wren, Meadow Pipit, Stonechat, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Long-tailed Tit, Water Rail, Snipe, Avocet, Lapwing, Common Gull, Great White Egret and Little Egret also stood out. Green Woodpecker, Stock Dove, Chaffinch, Herring Gull, Cormorant, Tufted Duck, Greylag Geese, Coot and Great Crested Grebe were delightful birds to see on regular walks at Lakeside Country Park this month with Blue Tit and Goldfinch enjoyed at home.

Some insects brought vibrance to my month with Red Admiral and possibly Peacock butterflies, my first ever Large Pale Masoner moth, Common Darter and Migrant Hawker dragonflies, Seven-spotted Ladybird, my first ever Giant Willow Aphid, wasp, hoverfly and bees seen. Grey Silverfish and spiders Long-bodied Cellar spider and Missing Sector Orbweaver were nice to see at home. Grey Squirrel, Fallow Deer, Brown Rat and Rabbit were nice mammals seen.

There were some very interesting flowers around this month with a theme of early risers or late re-flowerers with things in flower which I wouldn’t necessarily expect for November such as hawthorn, winter heliotrope, sweet violet and alder and hazel catkins coming through all at Lakeside. Other key plants seen this month included comfrey, water forget-me-not, green alkanet, knapweed, white deadnettle, red deadnettle, shepherd’s purse, petty spurge, common or heath dog violet, bramble flower, viper’s-bugloss, ragwort, hogweed, yarrow, buttercups, lesser spearwort, self-heal, fennel, daisy, dandelion, sow thistle, cleavers, maidenhair spleenwort, ferns including hard fern, soft shield fern and bracken, mistletoe, bell heather and a winter favourite of mine bright coconut scented gorse. For fruits cheery hawthorn and holly berries, blackthorn sloes, guelder rose berries and still some blackberries clinging on were good to see with hemp agrimony and old man’s beard and cuckoo-pint and foxgloves among pretty seed heads and leavers enjoyed.

The Shadowhunters TV show - if you had to give percentages out to which parts are good, which parts are bad, and which parts are horrible - well, the good percentage will not be very high.  

One good thing about that show, other than having Magnus Bane in it (and really anything with Magnus Bane in it is good) was that it made all sorts of people want to write malec fic! The books have been a guilty pleasure of mine, because I am a sucker for Alec and Magnus. I don’t know if its because I’m gay and it was nice to see gay characters in mainstream books, especially those geared towards younger readers, or because I like drama and glitter.  Doesn’t matter, not the point of this post.

There is a great fic written by @superficialpeasant called Best Laid Plans, which is a favorite of mine (and about one thousand other people) and they have also written the fic I linked above.  I myself always groan when I see original character in the tags because often, it’s a mary sue, but that is not the case here. 

@superficialpeasant took a minor character invented by the trash tv show that had about 10-15 lines, never even had a first name, and then created an original character to be his love interest and managed to write one of the best stories I have read in a very long time in any fandom.  I might have even gotten choked up at a point or two.

So if there is an award for best fanfic based on a character from a tv show based on a book series that wasn’t even in the book series and their love story with a completely original character,  Lasă-mă să stau (Let Me Stay) would win all the prizes.  ALL THE PRIZES.  

15/02/20-Hawkhill, New Forest 

Pictured: 2 views, I like the colour of the grasses at this place a real distinctive feature to the landscape on this particular walk and it lights up the pictures well I feel on this occasion as it had done in the past here. It was another wet and windy walk as a result of a named storm for me in the forest, this time Storm Dennis after braving Storm Ciara to go to Acres Down in the New Forest for a dog walk at the very least on Sunday.

11/02/18-Super Sunday at Titchfield, Hill Head, Riverside Park, Hawkhill and St. Leonard’s Barn in the New Forest

With me looking after the dogs next Friday and Saturday so my Mum and her husband can go away for his birthday and not being able to take any pictures on Saturday as I’ll only be walking the dogs over Lakeside and will need to focus on that doing it on my own, we had a super Sunday today to pack lots in. Instead of only going out in the afternoon like every usual Saturday and Sunday me and my Mum darted about to five different locations in Hampshire seeing so much and producing eleven photos in total on a mostly sunny winter’s day. I got three more bird year ticks and one mammal year tick along the way, I continue to be in dreamland as my bird year list reached 129 already something I didn’t achieve until early April last year.

The first stop off which I didn’t even have room to include its full name in the title so it didn’t become too long was the Titchfield Canal Path this morning. Here we were aiming to see if the Barn Owl was around in a certain tree we had seen it in last year and we looked in the binoculars and it was. This is such a well respected and special bird and it was a real honour to see it. I managed the record shot the 1st picture in this photoset of it. The Tawny is my favourite but I like all Owls a lot really so to now have got Owls on eight consecutive year lists made me happy. 

Next it was to Hill Head with Sanderlings the target. We arrived and the beach looked good in the sun so I took the 2nd picture of Titchfield Haven (Hill Head is the area in front of the reserve so I always refer to my trip as that when we don’t actually go into the Haven) and 3rd picture in this photoset looking out to sea and in doing so spotted some small glowing white waders out of the corner of my eye. I’d seen the Sanderlings a bird I have a lot of respect for too, waiting years to see my first but thankfully I’ve seen them each year since 2013, and I managed another picture of them this year like I did last year the 4th in this photoset. I’d take more pictures than anywhere today at Hill Head as we walked up and looked around seeing the Sanderlings again further up after they had flown off. I also took the 5th picture in this photoset. 

Before heading home to pick up my Mum’s husband due to seeing the Barn Owl and Sanderlings early in the call ins we decided to call into Riverside Park beside the River Itchen as shown in the 6th picture in this photoset I took today in Southampton. One thing we saw there were seven Black Swans swimming quite close, I got the 7th picture in this photoset of one. What struck me today was how lovely and elegant these small swans look and it was interesting to hear their honking calls which reminded me of Trumpeter Swans one of my favourite wildfowl species that we see in the WWT reserves’ collections of birds. It was also interesting to see two possibly performing courtship actions, summing up a slight feeling of spring in the air despite the cold. I took the 8th picture in this photoset of a Feral Pigeon near where we watched these Black Swans.

As we walked back to the car we knew a Common Sandpiper had been seen around the area. We saw something fly but it was just going too far along the river to tell what it was. We’d seen Redshanks in the area (which surprised me for such an urban location) and I did sense a glint of red about this bird so didn’t want to make that mistake. However just before crossing the road at a bit of the river where there was a shore we saw the Common Sandpiper. Another year tick being a lovely bird today and I do like the Common Sandpipers and its one you never know where one will crop up. Funnily it was my 140th bird of my record 2017 year list and Barn Owl was my 150th so two big milestone birds last year were ones I saw today and I love those little quirks of seeing things.

In the afternoon we had a walk at Hawkhill in the New Forest and then moved onto St. Leonard’s Barn to try and see some Little Owls which we didn’t. On the way to Hawkhill I finally saw my first Fallow Deers of the year which had made me wait this year, being beaten onto my year list by Red Deer, Red Squirrel and Mountain Hare in Scotland which was surreal. I have now seen twelve mammals this year and I saw thirteen in total last year with some I still expect to see over the course of a year to be honest. The highlight at Hawkhill was a flock of Fieldfares as we drove out and a Buzzard soaring above the woods. It was my only favourite bird I saw today and certainly was a star in my Super Sunday seeing a few on route to and at different places. 

13th December 2020-Garden birds and wet and dark walk at Hawkhill in the New Forest 

Pictures I took today in this photoset are; Pied Wagtail in the garden, Rex and Violet the Feral Pigeons we have nicknamed out the back, four landscapes at Hawkhill, mushrooms and autumnal leaves at Hawkhill and three more landscapes at Hawkhill with a nice steam too. 

Its interesting I worked out tomorrow is exactly a year since I first noticed the two Feral Pigeons, which my Mum went on to name after her late parents, in the garden on a December Saturday. Its really fascinating because of course there are individuals and pairs of birds etc., Starlings, Woodpigeons or Goldfinches probably as the three most consistent and longest serving species visitors to our garden House Sparrow could be too, and there are the Pied Wagtail pair that come in only in the winter months usually. But for those its hard to know that the exact same birds are visiting the garden over a year and more though they probably are. But these two Feral Pigeons are both so distinctive looking with their markings and pretty, the first Feral pigeons we ever got coming into the garden too, so its been so easy to track them coming in and whilst Rex didn’t come in for an extended period when lockdown started actually in the spring they have been fairly consistent so its just amazing I can now know that I’ve been watching these two individual birds for a year something so unique which adds a very nice strand into a key theme in my year being observing the garden birds so much one of the true highlights of my year from the young birds coming in a lot in spring to building this relationship with these two birds and they have truly become so special to me.

It was a really nice athletic typical winter’s walk today in the forest this afternoon.  

Wildlife Sightings Summary at Hawkhill: Lots of Woodpigeons flying over, Dunnock and a finch flock very quickly possibly Siskins flying through a great feeling to see these always. 

08/03/20-Hawkhill and Eyeworth Pond in the New Forest 

Another short walk today with Ruby recovering from the Adder bite at Hawkhill. After torrential rain on the way, and before some more in another shower travelling from here to Eyeworth Pond a quick call in and look on the pond, we walked out here on a gloriously sunny patch of the day. I took the first five pictures in this photoset of landscapes at Hawkhill. With all of this my mind turned to rainbows and whilst I didn’t see one today I remarked again at the sheer amount I have seen this winter. I think this is notable because it’s showed there have been so many days this winter where the weather has been so unpredictable, you could get four seasons in a day and sun has so often been shining in rain and/or against dark clouds. 

Usually in this part of the country during winter for the most part it’s not like this as days are either totally rainy, totally overcast or refreshingly totally sunny. Whether it’s due to this being a mild winter, climate change or if the two are interlinked it’s certainly made this winter different. 

It was nice after leaving Hawkhill to travel a long way across the forest to Eyeworth Pond and take in the great New Forest scenery in mostly sun either side of the shower whilst listening to music in the car. A great sense of us going for a drive in a beautiful area sort of which I haven’t had for a long time. When we arrived at Eyeworth Pond it was great to watch and photograph some water and woodland birds in more strong sunlight. It was a case of three delightful ducks as we watched a Goosander excitedly as it came so close to us I took the sixth and seventh pictures in this photoset of it. I also took eighth and ninth in this photoset of a lovely male Mallard that came so close with its head looking nice and blue in this gorgeous sunlight. I also spotted some Mandarin Ducks at the back and one swimming closer to us on the shore too. I took a distant picture the tenth in this photoset of a male and female Mandarin Duck a star species of this place.