Mid-winter gives us the best chance to see birds when we’re out on our beautiful coastline. Thousands migrate to the haven of the Solent, travelling hundreds of miles from the harsh winters of the Arctic.
What birds should we look out for when we’re out on the coast? And where have they flown here from?
1. Sanderling
Despite their diminutive size, sanderlings fly thousands of miles to spend the winter on the Solent coast, all the way from the Siberian Arctic and Greenland.
Sanderlings are most easily recognised by their behaviour, scampering about on the sand rather than walking and probing in the mud.
In the winter, they’re pale grey with a bright white belly and a short straight black bill.⠀
Sanderlings roosting on the beach
2. Oystercatcher
With their striking black and white plumage, reddish-pink legs and their remarkable carrot-like bills, oystercatchers are hard to miss, so are a great species to look out for if you’re a beginner birdwatcher.
Some migrate here for the winter from other UK coastal areas, from Norway and from the Netherlands, while others stay here year round.
Oystercatchers in flight
3. Dark-bellied brent goose
Dark-bellied brent geese are our smallest goose, only a little bigger than a mallard duck, and they fly 3,000 miles to get to the Solent all the way from arctic Siberia.
A group of dark-bellied brent geese
4. Curlew
The curlew is Europe’s largest wading bird with an extraordinary curved bill and a haunting ‘cur-lee’ call.
They return to our shores towards the end of the summer from Scandinavia and Russia, while those that spent the summer in the New Forest, will head further south to France and Spain.
A curlew
5. Redshank
Redshanks are a wading bird which spends the winter on the Solent, after a summer breeding season on in the north west of the UK or Iceland.
Shank is an old term for legs, or more especially the part from the knee to the ankle, so these birds, with their bright red-orange limbs are aptly named.
They are known as the ‘warden of the marshes’ because they’re often the first and one of the loudest birds to warn other species when there is a predator about. They have a high-pitched short whistling call which they repeat over and over again.
A redshank with its brightly hued legs
6. Dunlin
Tiny dunlins fly here from Scandinavia and Russia. Other dunlin just pass through during their spring and autumn migrations, using the Solent coast as a pit-stop to rest and refuel.
If you see them in flight, you might get lucky and see dunlins perform a murmuration – a group aerobatic display they use to confuse predators. As they turn, they alternately show the white of their bellies and the brown of their backs.
A dunlin murmuration
7. Ringed plover
Ringed plovers have a black scarf and eye-mask, an orange bill with a black tip, orange legs with light brown feathers on top making them well camouflaged from aerial predators.⠀
Ringed plovers are resident along our Solent coastlines all year round but much larger numbers are seen over the colder months: in the UK overall, there are about four times as many of the species in the winter, compared with the summer.
You’ll see passage migrants in the autumn and spring as they travel through this country on their way to and from more northern breeding grounds on UK coastlines, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Belgium.
Ringed plover
8. Black-tailed godwit
Black-tailed godwits travel over 1000 miles from Iceland to get to our Solent shores every winter – an extraordinary journey for a bird weighing less than 300g.
In the winter their plumage is greyish-brown and far less vibrant than their summer season’s orange brown plumage. They have long beaks and legs, and black and white stripes on their wings which are visible in flight.
An elegant black-tailed godwit
9. Turnstone
Turnstones are a small wading bird which travels to the Solent every winter from Greenland, Lapland and Canada.
It has a distinctive pointed wedge-shaped bill and bright orange legs. In winter it has a mottled grey and brown back, head and breast with a dark breast band and a white belly.
Turnstones roosting
10. Wigeon
This medium-sized dabbling duck spends the winter on the Solent coast, returning to its summer breeding grounds of Iceland, Russia, Scandinavia and Ukraine. Some wigeon stay in the UK all year round and can be found breeding in the summer months in Scotland, Northern England and South East England.
The male has a chestnut head with a characteristic creamy-yellow ‘punk’ crown stripe, grey back and sides with a pink chest and white wing patches that can be seen when they fly. The female is light brown and looks quite similar to a female mallard.
Like many other ducks, wigeon don’t quack: instead they make a memorable whistling call.
Wigeon ducks
