The harbour is full of waders at the moment and a low tide on any stretch of the harbour shoreline can provide you with views of at least 18 species of wading birds. Some species are site specific, for example the Bar-tailed Godwits will always favour the sandy shoreline of Shore Road (Whitley Lake) and Turnstone the stony beaches of Baiter and Hamworthy beach. Wherever you are around the harbour, just take a moment to peek onto the shoreline to see what you can spot. Wading species you can currently encounter are Oystercatcher, Avocet, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Lapwing, Knot, Sanderling, Purple Sandpiper, Turnstone, Dunlin, Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew and Snipe. There were 4 Black-necked Grebe off Jerry’s Point along with good numbers of Goldeneye, Great Crested Grebe and Red-breasted Merganser. Other sites monitored included Lytchet Bay where there was 1 Greenshank, 1 Water Pipit and 2 Green Sandpiper. Holes Bay saw 1 Spoonbill, 1 Common Sandpiper, 30+ Avocet and 1 Tufted Duck (unusual here). At Hatch Pond still no Bittern but 49 and 9 Snipe roosting on the 2 small areas of cut reed plus 1 Pochard. I’ve finally managed to get out and do some sound recording recently and was thrilled to get a recording of a bird I never was never expecting. I was out along the Arne Road hoping to sound record Redwing coming into roost when I heard a call I was quite unfamiliar with. It was a husky gruff , rather heron like. I looked up only to see to see a Short-eared Owl flying over my head and away towards the Wareham Channel. The call was coming from the Owl! It did it again, so I  quickly pressed record hoping it would do it one last time before disappearing and sure enough, as it lofted away into the cold, gloomy light it called one last time. The recording below is of that call.