Finally, 55 days after hatching our final Osprey chick 6T9 fledged this morning, albeit with an element of mystery. At 06:38 this morning 6T9 was on the nest, but there was then an onsite power cut, and when the nest cam came back on at 06:42 6T9 had gone! We’re not sure what happened in that four minute gap, but 6T9 decided to fledge for some reason and then wasn’t seen for several hours. To be honest, this is pretty typical for young birds, to fledge and then just go and sit in a tree somewhere ‘recovering’. Thankfully, by this evening 6T9 was back on the nest feeding well, meaning that we’ve now seen four out of four Osprey chicks fledge again for a third year in a row. Brilliant news!!!!

This evening 2-year old Osprey 5R0 was hunting in the Wareham Channel, along with 022 and CJ7, plus male White-tailed Eagle G463 was also present and a juvenile Marsh Harrier. Incredibly there were ZERO terns on the Brownsea Lagoon this evening, suggesting that most/all had gone already? A few Common and Sandwich Tern were out feeding in the harbour, but nowhere near the amount you’d expect for late July. Passage waders on the lagoon were in reasonable numbers and saw c120 Dunlin, 5 Greenshank, c100 Redshank, 2 Turnstone and 10+ Common Sandpiper. This evening 10 Spoonbill flew from Brownsea towards Middlebere and at the Lower Piddle Valley ringing station 14 Grasshopper Warbler were ringed this AM.