Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who entered our competition that was set at the beginning of the week, many of you entered and a good range of species were guessed, but in the end, after todays random draw we’re pleased to announce that the winner is John Keates from Poole who correctly guessed Black-headed Gull, Med Gull, Shelduck, Turnstone and Black-tailed Godwit.

Spring stepped up a notch today with an obvious movement of migrants. This included a large movement of Meadow Pipits right across the county with groups ranging in size from 2-20 as they passed overhead. At Lytchett Fields today there was another Little Ringed Plover plus 3 Spoonbill, 4 Gadwall, 2 Greenshank and 12 Pied Wagtail were present. At Studland a few Sand Martin came in off the sea as did a single Swallow and the Great Grey Shrike was still at Godlingston.

After analysing some more garden night time recordings, I was thrilled to discover (thanks to some help from Magnus Robb at the Sound Approach) that a sound that I originally thought was a Barn Owl was in fact a Water Rail flying over. Interestingly this call came less than an hour after the Moorhen call in the same night, so maybe there was a small concentrated movement of rails/crakes that night in the area…who knows???

Water Rail – Flight calls of a night time migrant – Lytchett Matravers