Blimey! And just like that September was done. What a month its been with a great passage of birds passing through the harbour. The mid-autumn sun smothered the harbour today and even got a few birds singing with multiple Common Chiffchaff in pretty much full song at the PCW Drain this morning, with no less than 40 present in total, along with 10+ Blackcap, 3 Kingfisher and the first 3 migrant Song Thrush of the autumn dropping down from height, into the scrub. In Middlebere this morning there were 6 Curlew Sandpiper, 2 Great White Egret and c150 Avocet, plus a Hen Harrier was logged in the hide diary, but it didn’t state what age or sex. Wheatear have been rather thin on the ground this autumn, so 3 at Greenlands Farm were good today, and with autumn ploughing on, the checking of a few local ‘tins’ over the weekend logged some fresh, juvenile Adder which is always a joy to see. Finally, this evening a new record number of Spoonbill were logged on the Brownsea Lagoon with 115 counted by Brownsea warden Nicki Tutton. What will the harbour total end up being within the next few weeks before some start moving off on the next leg of their migration south?

Juvenile Adder under a Poole Harbour ‘tin’