With the spring warmth developing, with it comes an increase in activity, especially from birds of prey, as courtship, displaying and local movements all come into play. It was an absolute raptor-fest today, which incredibly saw NINE different White-tailed Eagles moving around the Poole Harbour/Purbeck area during the course of the day. This has been a typical pattern for all the eagles since the translocation started in 2019, in that early spring sees movements of younger birds, leaving wintering areas and starting to explore, whilst looking for other eagles. This volume of eagles won’t remain locally, and could easily all be in another county in 24 hours time, but the fact that there were nine eagles locally is simply mind blowing. Other raptors moving about included several Red Kite with birds over Middlebere, Ham Common and Upton. A 2nd cal year Goshawk flew over Middlebere, Marsh Harriers were active over Middlebere and Swineham and a male Merlin was still active around the Hartland area. We’d like to congratulate local birder and photographer Mark Wright who today managed to capture the elegance and beauty of many of the raptors that were out and about today in the spring sunshine. Elsewhere 3 Great White Egret came out of the roost at Swineham this morning and 50 Fieldfare were still at Hartland stud.

Marsh Harrier – Mark Wright

Goshawk – Mark Wright

White-tailed Eagle – Mark Wright

Merlin – Mark Wright