Well, for a brief moment we were able to take our minds off Osprey’s when we received some really exciting news mid afternoon, but more on that in a moment. Firstly general sightings from the harbour included Osprey sightings at Lytchett Bay and the Wareham Channel with Lytchett Fields seeing 1 Little Ringed Plover, 2 Egyptian Geese, 2 Lapwing, 2 Stonechat and plenty of Blackcap singing around the area plus Whimbrel and a partial summer plumaged Spotted Redshank in the bay. At Swineham, warbler song is all kicking off with 21 Cetti’s, 12 Reed and 1 Sedge Warbler all singing around the two rivers walk with several Swallow and Sand Martin about too. Over Meyrick Park Golf Club a flock of c20 Crossbill flew over and a Hobby passed over Corfe Castle.

However, the news of the day (which will provide nightmares for us tonight) was the news we’d been waiting for, for almost a year when Tim Mackrill called to say that he had just received data that showed that one of the Isle of Wight Sea Eagles was heading right towards the harbour. Without a second to spare various bedroom windows and verandas quickly became observation points to try and scan the sky for the 8ft winged monster. Sadly it seems we had received the news just a few minutes too late as the next set of data that came through 10 minutes later showed the bird had carried on west towards Wareham and then SW towards Weymouth and ultimately down in to Devon. Below is a map showing the different fixes from the sat-tag as it crossed the harbour, with each point marking 5 minutes of time between each point. As frustrating as it was that no-one saw this spectacle as it shadowed the harbour it seems there will be plenty of opportunity over the coming months and years for these kinds of experiences to become a bit more frequent as the Sea Eagle reintroduction grows.

Sea Eagle journey across the harbour today

And finally, a day wouldn’t be complete without talking about our favourite female who had so much press coverage today we’re surprised she hasn’t vacated to Hollywood! Female Osprey CJ7 was in the Mail Online and printed Daily Mail, the Telegraph online and then Radio 4 this afternoon on the PM show. It’s fair to say that she certainly has ‘the will of the nation’ behind her hoping to see ‘her man’ turn up soon. We’ve made a nice update video for you which covers her behaviour and activity from the last week….