Now, it’s not like we want to blow our own trumpet, but if you read yesterday’s sightings blog, which we wrote less than 24 hours ago, we were hypothesising and day dreaming that today a dream end to the year would involve the arrival of something special like a Smew or Bewick’s Swan. Well, at about 10am this morning, not one but two Smew were found out in Brands Bay, one being a fine drake. The last Poole Harbour Smew record was on Feb 23rd 2016. However, the last drake Smew record was as far back as 2008, and even more amazingly it was also logged on Dec 31st of that year. Smew are such special winter birds, especially the drakes, we really hope they hang on for several weeks as they’ll be great additions to our Winter Bird Boat lists. Also logged from Jerry’s Point/Brands Bay was the drake Scaup, plus 2 Slavonian Grebe, 5 Black-necked Grebe, 2 Great Northern Diver and 1 White-tailed Eagle. There were 38 Russian White-fronted Geese at Ridge, but no sign of the Tundra Bean Geese. The 10 Glossy Ibis were once again in wet fields just south of Wareham train station. Out off Middle Beach, Studland 9 Black-necked Grebe were present along with 3 Great Northern Diver and 10 Great Crested Grebe.

Now we don’t want to start getting too cocky and start making outlandish predictions for tomorrow, but a new years day Red-breasted Goose or Sociable Plover wouldn’t go amiss.

From all of us here at Birds of Poole Harbour we want to wish you all the very Happy New Year and we look forward to a bird-filled and inspiring 2026.

Drake Smew (White Nun) and redhead Smew (and male Red-breasted Merganser) – Brands Bay/Jerry’s point – Phil Bentley

Drake Scaup (and male Red-breasted Merganser) – Brands Bay/Jerry’s point – Phil Bentley