Autumn really getting underway now…well, kind of, with the first Redwing flying over Upton at dawn yesterday morning which had actually been recorded during a nocturnal listening station. The first 2 Merlin of the autumn were out on Hartland Moor at dawn, ‘sparing’ with one another and in the Wareham Channel 3 Marsh Harrier came out of the roost. Near Swineham a Whinchat was on a hay bale plus a minor bit of passage up the Frome Valley included c20 Meadow Pipit, 3 Grey Wagtail, 10 each of Chaffinch and Goldfinch and 15 Swallow. At Lytchett Fields there were 2 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Peregrine (which took a Starling), 8 Greenshank, c50 Lapwing, 4 Common Snipe and 4 Green Sandpiper. At Sunnyside Pools the Black-tailed Godwit was still there and a Wheatear was in the fields. In Middlebere there were 388 Avocet and it seems Woodlark are dispersing to over-wintering sites with 3 seen in fields along Holme Lane and several in loose flocks on patches of heathland along the southern edge of the harbour near Hartland.