A Really tough day where the fog was supposed to have disappeared by 9am, but in fact, stayed smothering the harbour all day. There were a few snippets of birding interest including 5 Black-throated Diver still in-between Evening Hill and Brownsea Island, a Guillemot was off Poole Quay, a redhead Goosander was in Holes Bay NE, near the PCW Drain, 2 White-tailed Eagle were seen in the Wareham Channel this afternoon briefly and a single Hawfinch was still in St Marys churchyard at Lytchett Matravers.

In brighter news, there was some more historic Poole Harbour info today, in that the first ever wild Beavers in England were released into Little Sea, Studland this afternoon under the new Government license scheme which was announced and rolled out and last week. The National Trust have been working on this application for several years, hoping that the licenses would have been granted some time ago. However various secretaries of states  over the years have kicked the can down the road and put the scheme on the back burner for far too long. Late last week though, the current Environment Secretary ‘Steve Reed’ announced that licenses would now be considered for wild beaver releases, and so with all the hard work already completed the National Trust Purbeck team acted incredibly quickly, got their paper work in order, went to Scotland, caught some Beavers under license from wild populations up there in partnership with the Beaver Trust, and brought them down to the harbour at the start of this week. Talk about a speedy response. The reason this is significant is because all other beaver releases across the England up until this point have been within enclosures, meaning they can’t spread out and create the great dynamic wetlands they’re well built to do. Now with Beavers wild in Purbeck they’ll spread over time and start to create rich, dynamic wetlands across Purbeck and beyond. A huge congratulations to all involved.

European Beavers – Little Sea, Studland – The Beaver Trust