Another stunning day across the harbour with some new arrivals in evidence. From this mornings Osprey Cruise we had the below juvenile Osprey fly right over the boat, and with a quick inspection of the leg ring through the viewfinder of a camera we initially thought this was 5R3, the young female from the Carey nest this summer. However, Rene Goad uploaded his photos this evening and found that the ring actually read 7R3…..which definitely wasn’t one of our juveniles from the local nests. So, where was it from? A quick call to Tim Makrill for some guidance yielded a quick response where he informed us it was in fact a juvenile male which had fledged from a private site in the Rutland area and was ringed on July 6th. This is a really early migrant juvenile, but proves that Osprey migration is well underway, as we’ve already seen multiple transiting females passing through over the last few weeks. There were 4 other different Osprey in Lytchett Bay this morning which all caught fish, and another was in Middlebere. The White-tailed Eagle pair were both in the Wareham Channel by mid-morning, along with 16 Spoonbill, 8 Greenshank, 1 Marsh Harrier, 10+ Common Tern, c30 Sandwich Tern, c800 Black-tailed Godwit and 6 Ringed Plover. There was a good count of 14 Yellow-legged Gulls out on Arne Moors, on Hartland there were 7 Wheatear, 2 Whinchat and 2 Wheatear. At Lytchett Fields/Bay there were 2 Marsh Harriers, 2 Spotted Redshank, 19 Greenshank, 9 Ringed Plover, 8 Dunlin, 5 Common Sandpiper, 3 Green Sandpiper, 1 Redstart, 1 Tree Pipit, 1 Whitethroat, 2 Yellow Wagtail. There were also 21 spoonbill seen in Middlebere during the afternoon which were likely to be the same as the Wareham Channel birds from this morning. A Barn Owl was also at Lytchett Fields this evening…a rare bird here!

Juv male Osprey 7R3 from private Rutland site – Wareham Channel – Rene Goad

Ring of Juv male Osprey 7R3 from private Rutland site – Wareham Channel – Rene Goad