Thankfully the local impacts of last nights storm didn’t seem too bad, with just some minor flooding on the roads and a couple of downed trees. Hopefully everyone stayed safe and well. On the birding front, the impacts of the storm were equally uneventful locally with high anticipation and expectation for this mornings sea watch, only for it to not produce very much! Weirdly when we headed out at 6:30am there wasn’t a breath of wind, so the best we could muster from Branksome Chine was 1 drake Eider, 1 Great Northern Diver, 6 dark-bellied Brent Geese, 1 1st winter Kittiwake, 8 Sanderling and 1 Turnstone all west, with c30 Gannet heading both east and west. At the harbour entrance 2 small diver sp entered the harbour, almost certainly Red-throated Diver and a Razorbill was in Shell Bay. However, later in the day another vigil at Branksome did produce a few decent birds including a European Storm Petrel and then 2 distatnt petrel species, also 110 Black-tailed Godwit, 5 Common Scoter and a Merlin flew across Poole Bay. The storm did produce the goods for one area though, and that was Lytchett Bay as it hosted it’s first Common Scoter in 30 years, with a juv/female type present at dawn. Elsewhere there were 12 Cattle Egret in the Frome Valley at the Wareham – Stoborough causeway. Then, late this afternoon an incredibly late Hobby was over Arne Moors.

Common Scoter – Lytcehtt Bay – Ian Ballam