It was a record breaking day today for the Lytchett Bay recording area, with it’s 170th species logged for the year. This is the highest species total ever recorded in a year within the Lytchett Bay recording area since monitoring began in 1997. The bird that broke the record was a Short-eared Owl that appeared over the Rockley Pines, near the Turlin shore at dusk, which is a great record considering they’ve been really scarce this autumn. Also logged at Lytchett Bay today was the Curlew Sandpiper again on the fields, and 3 Marsh Harrier were seen from the Rock Lea viewpoint. A White-tailed eagle was seen again in the Wareham Channel and a Red-throated Diver was still off shell Beach. The Snow Bunting was still feeding along the beach at Shell Bay. Also from Shell Bay was 1 Little Gull, 2 Kittiwake, 19 Common Scoter and 2 Red-breasted Merganser.