It was 4 degrees this morning when we left for work! Then a cold wind set in and then some leaves fell off a tree….well, 2 leaves to be precise, but still, autumn seemed to progress once more. Hirundines were pushing through the harbour for most of the day, initially in bigger numbers but then smaller totals by late afternoon. It seemed to mostly be Swallow with lesser numbers of House Martin and Sand Martin. At Swineham 1 Pectoral Sandpiper was still on the scrape along with 23 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Lapwing and 1 Dunlin with 1 Cattle Egret near the Swineham access road. In Holes Bay NW there were 16 Knot, 1 Grey Plover, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 539 Black-tailed Godwit, 96 Redshank, 10 Curlew, 250+ Wigeon, 7 Shoveler, 2 Pintail, 2 Kingfisher and 16 Little Egret. At Lytchett Fields the Wood Sandpiper was seen again and at Holton Lee there were 12 Stonechat.

BREAKING NEWS: As a charity, we’ve also decided to host our popular Big Poole Harbour Bird Count FOUR TIMES A YEAR, building on last years community led data gathering format which saw around 100 data submissions in early January 2020. With autumn rumbling on we thought it would be great to kick start the autumn Big Poole Harbour Bird Count on October 25^th 2020. Keep an eye out on our website and social media channels for more information, but in the mean time……BOOK THE DAY IN YOUR DIARY AS ‘BIRDING DAY’

Cattle Egret – Swineham – Trevor Warwick