Our December scheduled visit was cancelled due to snow
and ice making travel difficult but we did pay a visit between Christmas and New Year to see what we had missed.

The snow and ice had cleared from the reserve during our visit but its effects were evident everywhere we went.

The ground was wet with melted snow and puddles of water broke up the gravel paths. Vegetation was soaked with water, grasses and reeds were brown and bent over, any remaining leaves on trees were of a dark green colour and even the nettle leaves had been pinched by the frost giving them a black fringe.

The sky was grey and the air felt damp and cold; altogether a typical winters day.

When we arrived the first thing we noticed was the low tide which was not a good sign as the birds tend to go onto the seashore at low tide and return to the reserve at high tide.

A flock of Brent Geese took off from the seashore as we got out of the car and flew along the Itchen valley calling as they went. Brent Geese come in two distinct varieties, the pale bellied and the dark bellied, of which only the dark bellied are seen in this area.

The dark bellied breed in Russian Siberia and migrate to the east and south east of Britain each winter.

The pale bellied breed in Canada and migrate to the west of Ireland for their winter feeding.

The birds are not idle while in this area as they move daily between feeding grounds around the Solent even going inland to feed on grassland or winter wheat.

Wherever they go they do not go alone; if one member of the flock wants to move to another area then they all go and they cannot do anything without calling or chattering amongst themselves.

The reserve is situated where the river Meon flows out to the Solent and is divided by the river into two sections.

On the west scrapes have been constructed together with three hides and the water level is controlled to maintain a level suitable for wading birds.

On the eastern side of the river three other hides overlook the river and meadow.

We visited the three hides overlooking the scrapes to start our visit. There were not a great number of birds at the time but the usual Mallard, Gadwall, Coot and Moorhen were all present.

We did see one Avocet and one Godwit and a few Wigeon and Teal.

Teal are one of the smallest of the migrating ducks and are so common as to be generally ignored.

On first sight they are a drab looking bird of dark brown and dark green but when the low winter sunlight catches their feathers they shine like coloured lights.

They have a bright horizontal black and white stripe either side of their body and a fluorescent green patch on the speculum part of the wing.

The name teal refers to the blue green colour of their eye patch.

Most of the activity from a bird point of view was taking place in the meadow on the eastern side of the reserve.

A large flock of Lapwing was systematically patrolling the meadow looking for food. These were supplemented by Canada Geese, Cormorants and a few Black backed gulls.

A pair of Ravens was seen with a dead squirrel, a group of six Jays foraged amongst the Lapwings and three Barnacle Geese were seen resting quite close to the hide.

On the whole we were quite disappointed with our visit to Titchfield; the number and variety of birds seems to have declined over the years that we have been going.

This may have been due to the low tide but a lot of work has been carried out recently in replacing the hides, erecting an electric fence and chopping out some of the old reeds and undergrowth.

Perhaps the reserve should be left to settle down for a few years to encourage wildlife.

As we left we noticed that even the Tufted ducks had taken to feeding in the harbour rather than on the reserve but at least the flock of Brent Geese were flying back chattering as they went.