What a stunner of a day, the sun shone and the birds appeared. By far the best sighting of the day was of a Glossy Ibis spotted in the Middlebere Channel. Unfortunately there is no further information other than it was seen flying east towards the centre of the harbour. Glossy Ibis are a very rare bird to the harbour with only a handful of previous records. However, there seems to be an annual migratory increase across the country of this species with a handful of birds over-wintering, which could provide more local sightings.  The ‘Birds of Poole Harbour’ field trip came up trumps with visits to Brands Bay, Bramble Bush Bay and Shell Bay. Sightings included the Surf Scoter, 3 Great Northern Diver, 1 Black-throated Diver, 1 Eider, numerous Red-breasted Merganser, Great Crested Grebe, Lapwing, Pintail and a Marsh Harrier. In Holes Bay 9 Spoonbill were present this morning along with 2 Spotted Redshank and 150+ Avocet. Some late news from last night of 6 Jack Snipe being caught and ringed by the Stour Ringing Group at a site near Soldiers Road.

NOTICE – It was discovered yesterday that the wind farm developers ‘Navitus Bay’ were advertising ‘Birds of Poole Harbour’ events on twitter completely unprompted by us. If anyone saw this, we wish to announce that we are in no way affiliated with Navitus and DO NOT support their current proposal.