Well, it was another fine weekend with opportunities to top up your tans! Interests seem to be expanding as they often do this time of year, from birds to reptiles, moths, butterflies, dragonflies etc. As May progresses, the opportunities to learn about this exciting range of fauna that Dorset and Poole Harbour is so famous for becomes easier with more species on the wing or enjoying basking in the sun. A mini reptile foray over the weekend produced all six native species of reptile including numerous pristine male Sand Lizards and a whopper of a Grass Snake Slepe Heath on the edge of a muddy pool. Bird-wise it’s been quite busy with plenty of Swifts now back over established breeding grounds, but more on that later. In the Wareham Channel possible Garganey (2 male and 2 female) flew west up the channel and 22 Little Egret entered the harbour colony at dusk on Sunday suggesting a reasonable number are breeding. The Cattle Egret didn’t show but has been seen in the Frome Valley several times over the last week. Hobby have been numerous with a peak count of 8 over the Arne Road area and singles over Slepe, Hartland and Stoborough Heath. At Lytchett Fields a Little Ringed Plover and 4 Ringed Plover were on the fields. Female Osprey CJ7 has been wandering the harbour a bit more and has been photographed by our trail cams on several more platforms and a migrant Osprey travelled high over the harbour on Sunday afternoon. Out in the Wareham Channel there seems to be an over-summering flock of 11 Great Crested Grebe that are hanging around, which we assume are young non-breeders. Also, on the gull islands, despite there being many hundreds of Med Gulls present only a couple of weeks ago, there seems to be hardly any again now with only a handful spread across the islands. The local Tawny Owl near the Osprey nest cam also came in for a sneaky look last night too to see if any late night supper may be available!

We mentioned Swifts earlier on and the fact they’re now seeming to be pairing up and seeking out old and new breeding sites. Well, we’re glad to say that with the lockdown restrictions having been eased ever so slightly we’ve been able to react quickly and continue our work on the Swift city Project we started last year. You can read our latest update HERE, but essentially we’ve been able to get another 15 boxes up in the last few days both in Wareham and Hamworthy just in time for this breeding season which is great news!

Sand Lizard (female) and Adder – Slepe Heath

Its all much of the same currently as spring migration now winds down. Waders can continue to pass right the way through May, but with all this high pressure birds are simply by-passing the south coast/UK and making good time in terms of reaching their breeding grounds further north. Today was a good example of that with a small selection of waders dropping in briefly at Lytchett Fields including 9 Ringed Plover, 1 Little Ringed Plover, 2 Dunlin, 3 Whimbrel, 1 Curlew and the 2 (semi) resident Oystercatcher. The first Marsh Harrier for nearly a month in the Wareham Channel area was seen and 3+ Hobby were active over Slepe Heath. Cuckoo’s were in the Frome Valley and there are now numerous newly fledged Stonechats out across the heathlands. An Osprey was seen over Holes Bay heading north which could well have been the visitor to CJ7’s nest the night before, plus a Common Tern was roosting near the Stone Bench at Upton CP. Don’t forget, May is also the best time to see fresh, bright green male Sand Lizards as they begin to start chasing females around heathland fringes. Check out this gorgeous photo by Ian Ballam from his local heathland yesterday. It also clearly highlights why male Sand Lizards are so regularly taken by heathland breeding Kestrels compared to the females!

Sand Lizards – Lytchett Heath – Ian Ballam

Ooof, where did the warmth go? Having been Costa Del Dorset for the last month, it was suddenly all change today as the temperature plummeted. Sensibly most people stayed inside, but an Osprey was seen heading north over Upton Heath/Corfe Mullen mid-morning and a Red Kite landed in a tree along Sandy Lane, Upton which must have been quite a sight.

We’ve also had our night sound recorder deployed at Lytchett Fields over the last week and have been through several of the files. Overall, the five nights it was deployed saw some interesting and certainly some notable birds pass over. Most notable was a Hawfinch that passed over on the night of May 6^th at 23:23. We last recoded Hawfinch at night during the autumn of the big influx year back in 2017 when thousands arrived into the UK. Prior to that winter they were always an exceptionally scarce bird in Poole Harbour / Dorset with only a handful of autumn records. Since the big influx year they reverted to being a really scarce bird, so to have a spring passage migrant logged in May is certainly an eye opener. Also logged were reasonable numbers of Ringed Plover and Dunlin, several Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank and Avocet a couple of Spotted Flycatcher, a single Grey Plover and lots of (presumed) local movements of Coot, Little Grebe, Teal and Nightjar. The most interesting thing about all these calls is that other than Greenshank and Whimbrel none of the other night sound recorded species mentioned above were visually seen at Lytchett Fields during any of the corresponding days……highlighting just how much goes through and over our heads at night!

We hope you’ve all had a decent bank holiday and managed to get involved in to todays action. Below is an overview of sightings from across the Bank Holiday weekend but we have to of course first discuss the incredible Red Kite migration that took place along Southern Dorset today.

It kind of felt like lockdown was building up to this moment with Red Kite being a main feature and focus for many peoples garden lists. To provide some context, it was barely 5 years ago that Red Kite wasn’t even a guaranteed bird on a Poole Harbour year list. However, populations elsewhere in the UK are thriving meaning dispersing, non-breeding birds from those populations move out of their natal areas and go on big spring migratory journey’s, often heading SW. Over the years we’ve seen this migration grow with some days seeing 10-20 Red Kite logged across Poole Harbour in a single day. Well, today blew those totals well out of the water. It started at Lytchett Bay when at around 9am the first one was logged heading SSW, quickly followed by another. Within an hour 15 had been logged and by early afternoon 23. At the same time 8 were logged over Oakdale, 11 over Poole Hospital, 13 over Canford Heath, 14 over Lytchett Matravers, counts of 3-5 over Sandford, Wareham, Studland, 26 over Langton Matravers and a whopping 63 over/past Westbourne. They were literally everywhere with the peak certainly seeming to be between 11am and 12pm, but it suddenly stopped at around 2pm. Its hard to estimate an exact count but it’s safe to assume that several hundred must have moved through the area this morning which is just fantastic and an experience many of you who saw ‘flocks’ of Red Kite today will never forget.

Also in the harbour today were 4 Hobby sightings at Lytchett Bay, a migrant Osprey caught a fish in the Wareham Channel and fed on it somewhere near the mouth of the Frome. Cuckoo are still going for it at Lytchett Bay, Swineham, Hartland Moor and Slepe Heath. A Cattle Egret was in the Frome Valley near the Wareham/Stoborough causeway and further up the Frome Valley Egyptian Geese have increased, and have even decided to breed, which we think may be the first Poole Harbour nesting of this species. The Brownsea Lagoon is now holding 220 Sandwich Terns with 122 sitting on nests, also 110 Common Tern with some beginning to settle and also 1 Med Gull nest. The Swineham area is now holding 47 Reed Warbler, 19 Cetti’s Warbler, 5 Sedge Warbler, 26 Reed Bunting and also 2 Hobby there too.

Also our Osprey nest cam hasn’t only still been providing great footage of CJ7, but also a few ‘extras’ in the shape of a Tawny Owl and posing Nightjar.

Tawny Owl on Osprey Nest Cam

Spring migration was really well presented today with a whole suit a nice birds and totals right across the harbour. Lets start with the raptors where bird of the day was a cracking Honey Buzzard photographed over someone’s garden in Poole Town. Other migrant raptors included a passage Osprey that went north over Lytchett Bay along with a juv Marsh Harrier. There were 3 Hobby on Arne Moors, a possible Black Kite over Ridge and Red Kite were everywhere today with records from pretty much every area of the harbour including Poole Town, Lytchett Bay/Matravers, Sandford, Slepe Heath, Swineham, Upton and Studland. Passerines were well represented and it was the best push of hirundines so far this spring with a broad front of mainly Swallow passing across the harbour and to a lesser extent House Martin, Sand Martin and Swift. At Lytchett Bay 364 Swallow were logged and there were also 2 Wheatear, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Common Whitethroat, 23 Linnet, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 5 Whimbrel and 4 Curlew. There was more lockdown ‘garden gold’ with a Great White Egret seen over Oakdale. There were 8 Swift in Wareham looking as if they were prospecting certain areas of North Street.

Things are looking promising over the coming days with settled weather and a good easterly air flow up until Sunday so we could be in for more garden fly by treats between now and then.

Honey Buzzard – Poole – Clare Slade

The colder winder conditions over the last couple of days seemed to have put a halt on migration. That said, a nice group of 38 Dunlin and 5 Ringed Plover were on Lytchett Fields on Monday morning. The unsettled weather often gets Swifts going and several were active over Poole Park today and a decent run of Swallow pushed through again on Monday. Other than that it was a rather poor show for birds these last couple of days.

However, with us all being locked up in our houses, it’s been a great time for some ‘noc-migging’ to take place in our local areas. Luckily there are a few of us now that sound record the night sky, hoping and trying to sound record passing migrants that cruise through the darkness. This spring has been really productive so far with some supurb species encountered, ranging from the more typical Coot, Moorhen and Water Rail to the not so typical Spotted Redshank, Common Scoters or Eurasian Dotterel. Below are a series of examples of recordings we’ve complied from our local area as well as a few recordings from another local noc-migger Nick Hull.

Little Grebe – Lytchett Bay – Paul Morton

Whimbrel – Lytchett Bay – Paul Morton

Eurasian Dotterel – Lytchett Matravers – Paul Morton

Spotted Redshank – Lytchett Bay – Nick Hull