A brisk easterly wind soon picked up making birding difficult but the Ring Ouzel at Middlebere stayed for its third day making the most of the berry laden Rowan Tree where it was feeding quite happily with several Mistle Thrush and Song Thrush. 18 of the harbour’s 47 Spoonbill came and settled in the Middlebere Channel. The Arne car park had a stormer of a day with a Yellow-browed Warbler in the over-flow car park, 24 Crossbill over with a few settled at the top of a Fir Tree, no less than 4 Firecrests around the visitors center and a Continental Coal Tit. RSPB Lytchett Fields was a bit quiet with 7 Greenshank, 60 Lapwing and a Peregrine the highlights. Several Marsh Harrier were out in the Wareham Channel viewed from Slepe Heath and 6 calling Woodlark went over at dusk.

Yellow-browed Warbler Alert – This autumn the country has seen an almighty influx of these once rare tiny little warblers and Dorset has already seen its fair share with birds popping up at several coastal spots. We’re asking people to keep an eye out for these stunning little birds in their gardens, local parks whilst out on walks etc as it would be great to get a scope on the true scale of this influx in the Poole Harbour area as we think there are probably a great deal more birds out there than are being found. Yellow-browed Warblers will often associate with tit flocks and are big fans of Sycamore trees. They’re busy little birds and can sometimes be quite hard to get a good view of (certainly whilst there are lots of leaves still on trees), but when they do show they’re fairly easy to ID with a bright yellow eye stripe and an obvious yellow wing bar. Be careful though as there are plenty of Chiffchaff around at present which also have a yellow eye stripe, but are plaine olive green all over with no yellow wing bar.Their call is also very recognisable. Below is a recording we made at Knoll beach, Studland last year of a bird that was moving through the scrub with a flock of Long-tailed Tits. Please report all Poole Harbour Yellow-browed Warbler sightings (and any other sightings) to info@birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk

Yellow-browed Warbler – Knoll Beach, Studland – 31/10/14