With the low mist over the weekend it seemed inevitable that a pea soup fog would roll in at some point, and it certainly did this morning. It didn’t take too long to burn off, and when it did it revealed a few surprises, not least a Snow Bunting found at the Lytchett Bay feeding station feeding with Greenfinches and Chaffinches this afternoon. An incredibly good, if not rather random find for a species that prefers rugged, coastal habitats during the winter, rather than woodlands next to a sewage works on the edge of town! The Forster’s Tern was still showing off in Poole Park all day, still attracting decent crowds and the Little Gull was still in Lytchett Fields. Around Sandbanks a Black-throated Diver was off Shore Road Beach, a Purple Sandpiper was on groyns  along from the Haven Hotel, a Red-necked Grebe was reported in Studland Bay with Black-necked Grebe and the 10 Glossy Ibis were on Wareham Common. Tonight a dusk watch/listen produced a good total of c60 Sand Martin and the first Little Ringed Plover of the Spring, also 2 Spoonbill, c60 Cattle Egret, 3 Great White Egret and 2 Marsh Harrier. Plus, a Bittern left in near total darkness at 18:43 which was heard but not seen as it seemed to have tracked quite far north before it was heard calling as it left. We set up a static recorder just in case any Bittern decided to leave and managed to just about get seven calls as it flew off into the darkness, but it was already quite far off before it started calling, so we’ve stated the seconds within the recording that you can hear the bird call: Bittern calls can be heard at 3, 8, 11, 18, 28, 38 and 46 seconds. Bittern calls sit at a very low frequency with the peak of the call only reaching 1.4kHz as highlight on the sonagram below.

Eurasian Bittern call sonagram – Swineham GP – 09/03/26