The scuzzy weather that hit hard over night passed through quickly and gave way to a clear crisp, if not slightly chilly morning. A new year survey boat went out and covered most of the harbour with highlights being 3 Great Northern Diver near the harbour entrance, 16 Black-necked Grebe off Goathorn, 8 Spoonbill on the Brownsea Lagoon with another 15 on Shipstal, Arne, 2 Razorbill one off North Haven and another off Brownsea as well as plenty of Red-breasted Merganser, Goldeneye and Great Crested Grebe. On the Brownsea Lagoon the water level was higher than usual but Gadwall, Shoveler, Teal Wigeon, Black and Bar-tailed Godwit, a handful of Spotted Redshank, Grey Plover, Dunlin, Knot and Avocet were all recorded and a Peregrine passed over. At Lytchett Bay the Lesser Yellowlegs was out in the Bay and later found on French’s Pool with a Spotted Redshank there too. An amazing sight of 6 Red Kite drifting low over Upton CP mid-morning, not only is this note worthy due to the time of year (normally seen during spring passage) but rarely do we ever see more than 2 together, suggesting they may have roosted locally somewhere? Also noteworthy was the find of 2 Pochard at Hatch Pond. This may not seem significant in a wider context, but so far this winter Poole Harbour has only seen one individual, which was at Swineham in mid December. Also at Hatch Pond a roost of 102 Magpie went in to trees around the edge of the pond. It seems gone are the days where stable wintering flocks occurred at places like Poole Park, Littlesea and Swineham. In Poole Harbour west 3 Hen Harrier were seen with a possible fourth and in the Wareham Channel 4 Marsh Harrier were counted. At the PC World drain up to 4 Chiffchaff were feeding in the scrub and tide-line. 

Chiffchaff – PC World Drain