Hopefully, today was the last period of foul weather for a while, with a beautiful ridge of high pressure now settled in over the UK for the next week. The foul weather did deliver our first sub-Saharan spring migrant of the year, with a male Northern Wheatear on Hartland Moor. This probably one of the earliest records for Poole Harbour of this species and follows a bit of a pattern of other early migrants appearing across the UK this year. We’re now entering ‘Bittern time’, with an opportunity to possibly see Bittern moving about Swineham GP at dusk, and in a few weeks time, the possibility of watching Bittern leave. This evening one was seen flying from Arne Moors, over onto Swineham GP at around 18:30, presumably to go and roost there. It called a few times as it flew as it flew from Arne Moors to Swineham which is always a joy to hear. From our School Bird Boat this AM, Bovington Academy enjoyed views of a White-tailed Eagle flying over Shipstal Point, at RSPB Arne, also 2 Black-throated and 1 Great Northern Diver off the Brownsea Lagoon sea wall and 1 Common Guillemot off Poole Quay. Tonight we were hosting our final Sunnyside ringing demo of the winter which was a cold, still night making catching tricky but we did end up with 3 Jack Snipe caught, including a re-trap of an individual we caught in mid-November last year.

Sanderling – Sandbanks Groynes