Another gorgeous day with droplets of excitement dotted around the harbour throughout the day. It started off at Lytchett Fields where the early morning cloud cover saw a series of waders drop on to the fields. This consisted of 14 Ringed Plover arriving in from the south in several small groups which stayed only for several minutes before carrying on north, and they were also joined by 2 summer plumaged Dunlin. There were still 2 Spotted Redshank present, one in full summer plumage also 1 Whimbrel, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 14 Black-tailed Godwit, 3 Lapwing, 2 Willow Warbler and 11 Swallow. At Swineham 3 Cattle Egret were on the scrapes and 7 Reed Warbler, 9 Cetti’s Warbler and 3 Redshank were also logged. On the Brownsea Lagoon 6 Common Tern arrived in which are the first of the season and Red Kites were logged (again) over Hartland, Upton, Lytchett and Sandbanks. A young male Marsh Harrier passed north of Upton mid afternoon. At Wareham Common there was a single Little Ringed Plover, 1 Sedge Warbler at the base of Wareham north walls and a distant Cuckoo was calling there early morning.

There was also a heart in mouth moment when we received photos from one of our remote trail cams on a different Poole Harbour nest platform which initially showed female Osprey CJ7 having a bit of breakfast all on her own, but she was quickly joined by a second bird which looked to be a male but sadly it didn’t have any rings on, so it wasn’t LS7. The encounter was all to brief and she looked like she was more interested in protecting her snack than showing any signs of wanting ‘befriend’ him. What this does indicate though is that the younger sets of birds (like LS7) are now beginning to pass through, so once we get this band of rain out of the way tomorrow he could be arriving any day now.

CJ7 and mystery male on harbour platform briefly

Cattle Egrets – Swineham – Garry Hayman