Ok, things calmed down a bit today but it was still a great day to be out. The Pectoral Sandpiper was still on ‘The Stilt Pools’ at Swineham where 2 Cattle Egret later joined it. Osprey were still numerous with 2-3 in Lytchett Bay and other sightings of 2-3 in the Wareham Channel area. Having spoken to Roy Dennis today about the high ‘stop over’ rate in the harbour this autumn he explained to us that it’s likely these are birds that have been struggling to feed sufficiently enough up on their breeding grounds and are looking to put on maximum weight before departing soon. There’s no doubt we’ve seen more activity this autumn than in previous years which just goes to show that Poole Harbour is absolutely the right place to try and re-establish a south coast breeding population. The Brownsea Lagoon saw the Spoonbill flock increase to 41 and there were also 6 Curlew Sandpiper, 1 Little Stint, 143 Avocet, 554 Dunlin, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit, 4 Knot, 6 Greenshank, 24 Ringed Plover, 85 Redshank and 20 Curlew. Around Lytchett Bay there was a decent fall of 38 Blackcap and 58 Chiffchaff caught at Lytchett Heath during a ringing session along with 4 Grasshopper Warbler, 4 Cetti’s Warbler, 1 Garden Warbler and 1 Whitethroat plus a Great White Egret was on Lytchett Fields from mid-morning.

Pectoral Sandpiper – Swineham