Isle of Wet.

Phil and I set off to the Isle of Wight on the second leg of our wildlife spotting jaunt where we hoped that the sun might put in a few appearances and allow us to catch up with some Glanville Fritillaries. Unfortunately for us the sun did not oblige and instead we were faced with leaden and often rainy skies.

Lymington 

From the ferry we saw several Mediterranean Gulls and Sandwich Terns in Lymington harbour as well as a few Shelduck and Oystercatchers. Leaving Yarmouth we travelled to Compton Chine where the target was those frits. Not surprisingly none ventured out in the dreary weather and it's fair to say that the day went downhill from this point onwards! Stonechat and a Raven represented scant consolation for our dip.

Compton Chine and Stonechat

Fort Victoria Country Park is reputed to hold some of the island's population of Red Squirrels but although we searched our efforts amounted to naught. Putting this dip behind us we moved on for a bite to eat at the excellent Sugarloaf coffeehouse in Freshwater. I'm mentioning this because it turned out to be the day's highlight, yes it really was that duff!

Fort Victoria and Ventnor, dippy and drippy!

Our next stop was Ventnor where the Wall Lizards clearly did not fancy the conditions one little bit and added to our dismal sequence of dips. With the weather looking like it might actually get worse rather than better we didn't even attempt to look for the island's Southern Emeralds and instead looked to see if we could return to the mainland on an earlier ferry. For once today luck was on our side as we were allowed to get on the next boat therefore saving us from a further four hours of  depressing dippage.

Island views.

So all in all it was far from a successful return to a place that I hadn't visited since 1979 and, given the results, it could be some time before I come back. Then again those Glanvilles are rather appealing so who knows.....