What a shame the calm weather of this morning didn’t welcome us for our windy boat trip yesterday. Still, it gave us a chance (and a reason) to get up and out early for sunrise so we could monitor a lot of the open water species roosts at sites like Studland and Brands Bay, Jerry’s Point and Poole Bay. With much of the harbour being flat calm at dawn some excellent totals and range of species were logged. Starting in Studland Bay there were 12 Black-necked Grebe, 14 Common Scoter, 1 Great Northern Diver, 5 Great Crested Grebe, 3 Med Gulls and 3 Ring-necked Parakeet flew over. In Brands Bay there were 32 Red-breasted Merganser, 200+ Brent Geese and 3 Goldeneye. From Jerry’s Point 1 Long-tailed Duck, 2 Slavonian Grebe, 4 Great Northern Diver, 11 Black-necked Grebe, 7 Goldeneye and c40 Red-breasted Merganser were counted. Shell Bay hosted 2 Great Northern Diver and 2 Black-necked Grebe and on Pilots Point it was great to see a small roost once more (it used to host thousands of waders in the 1980s/90’s) with 27 Ringed Plover, 21 Sanderling, 25 Grey Plover and 1 Knot logged with a fly over Sandwich Tern too. Poole Bay saw 2 more Great Northern Diver and a Red-throated Diver, whilst the north Channel off Evening Hill saw 2 more Great Northern Diver and a Red-throated Diver was off Baiter. From Hamworthy Beach, 2 Black-necked Grebe, 68 Red-breasted Merganser and 7 Goldeneye were present. In total 11 different Great Northern Diver were logged today as were 27 Black-necked Grebe. There were also 2 Hen Harrier in the harbour today with the female still present around Middlebere and a new juv male bombing about near Swineham Point. In the mouth of the Frome, 4 Marsh Harrier were active with another further up the Frome Valley near Bog Lane. The floodplain at Holmebridge is holding good numbers of birds including (the Swineham?) 436 Canada Geese, 21 Pintail, 2 Shoveler, 9 Curlew and 42 Mute Swan and on the West side 61 Mute Swan, 40+ Lapwing, 50+ Teal and lots of Redwing and Fieldfare. In the Middlebere orchard a Firecrest, Chiffchaff, Reed Bunting and Bullfinch were present and in the channel c200 Lapwing, 150 Avocet, 100 Black-tailed Godwit and 1 Spotted Redshank.

Black-necked Grebe – Shell Bay

Slavonian Grebe – Jerry’s Point

Sanderling & Ringed Plover flock – Pilots Point, Studland 

Great Northern Divers – Hamworthy Beach – Ian Ballam