This morning heralded the first ‘semi-decent’ winter thrush arrival of the season with Redwing, Blackbird and Song Thrush all arriving overnight. Only semi-decent because it was several flocks of a few hundred birds passing over a few sites this morning. However through the rest of October and into early November these totals will grow, and on a few ‘perfect’ mornings, the total number of Redwing, Song Thrush and Blackbird could actually reach several thousand arriving (with a few Ring Ouzel thrown in for good measure). Talking of Ring Ouzel, a lone individual was feeding on berries along the Middlebere track this morning and this afternoon, but we’re now in ‘peak Ouzel’ time, so there will definitely be more about…they just need to be found. The Yellow-browed Warbler arrival continues, this time with the first urban individual of the season with one in Hillborne Copse, Broadstone this morning. On the Brownsea Lagoon there were only 16 Spoonbill today, and a tiny number of Avocet, but there were 203 in Middlebere so they’re not totally absent. This is a very low total of Avocet for the time of year considering as we had c600 this time last year. We’ll just have to wait and see if and when any more turn up, but hopefully they’ve just been delayed. The White-tailed Eagle pair were in the Wareham Channel up until midday at least, an Osprey was high over the Arne road with a fish, a Red Kite drifted over there too and a Merlin was on Greenlands Farm, Studland.

Ring Ouzel – Middlebere – Mark Wright