What another great early Spring day, made all the better by the fact that the now annual Forster’s Tern appeared this evening off Baiter Park. This individual was first found in the harbour in March 2023, and has since used the area as a staging site both in the spring and the autumn as it moves from it’s over wintering site in Brittany, Northern France, to a range of sites in Northern England during the summer. There’s a good chance it will hang around for a few days (possibly weeks), and should be easy to ID as there are currently no similar looking Common Terns present for several weeks, and the only Sandwich Terns present already have their full summer plumages in tact and yellow tips to the bills.

It was a stunning afternoon for our Low Tide Cruise, albeit with a rather cold breeze! We had 9 Black-necked Grebe, a good number for this time of year, off Jerry’s Point including birds in summer-plumage. A quick stop off to look into the Brownsea Lagoon at the start of the trip allowed us to see 2 Spoonbill and c150 Black-tailed Godwit with c40 Bar-tailed Godwit. Both adult White-tailed Eagles G466 and G463 of the Dorset pair were sat on Shag Looe for the entire trip. 2 Marsh Harrier were displaying in the Wareham Channel. Other highlights included 4 Great Northern Diver and c300 Dark-bellied Brent Geese on the mud around Ower Bay.

The Glossy Ibis flock of 10 were once again feeding out on Wareham Common again during most of the day, there were 8 Sand Martin at Holmebridge, 2 Red Kite and 2 White-tailed Eagle were in the Wareham Channel this afternoon and up to 3 Goshawk were seen around Middlebere/Arne. The adult Little Gull was in Lytchett Bay again, 50+ Cattle Egret were at Worgret near Purbeck Sports Centre and Marsh Harrier were displaying over the harbour once again.

BOC (Back of Camera) shot of the forster’s Tern off Baiter this evening – Joe Parker