It seems our Osprey chicks are getting just as excited about the autumn as we are, with both us and them soon to be thinking about nothing else other migration, migration, migration. For us, it’s a leisurely experience as we sit back and enjoy the many species of bird that pass through Poole Harbour in their droves all heading south for the winter. The passage of warblers, chats, hirundines, waders and finches of many different species will see us all with binoculars permanently glued to our eye sockets for the foreseeable future whilst we also begin our autumn nocturnal listening study too. This audible study began two years ago as a bit of a test to see what’s migrating over our head’s as we’re all tucked up in bed. Within a year we’d already helped make quite a remarkable discovery in partnership with The Sound Approach, which was that from mid August through to mid September Ortolan Bunting, a very rare and scarce bird in a Poole Harbour/Dorset context is/was in fact a regular night migrant over Poole. You can read about the discovery HERE. With big numbers of waders already moving across the UK, we’ll be putting our recording equipment out for the first time this autumn tonight. We’ll let you know how we get on.  The Osprey chicks on the other hand have got their own migration to consider and they won’t have the luxury of being able to watch from the sidelines. As you can see from our most recent monitoring footage, some are really now getting strong in the wing flying/hopping from perch to post and back again. Currently its LS0 and LS1 who are the most advanced but hopefully within the next 5 days the others will be at the same stage and we can begin to think out the opening of the pens. We’ll be meeting with our partners in the project, The Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation early next week to discuss the exciting next phase.

Today in the harbour there were 3 Roseate Tern on the Brownsea Lagoon again, with 2 on the Common Tern nesting island and 1 on the ‘Boomerang’. The Avocet family struck another blow as it now looks as if they’re down from 4 chicks to 2. This was always going to be a precarious situation with so many gulls about but hey…that’s nature. All we can hope is that Avocet breeding attempts rise over the coming years and the potential for successful fledging increases. Also on Brownsea were 6 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Ringed Plover, 22 Dunlin, 4 Curlew, 2 Whimbrel, 8 Common Sandpiper, 11 Avocet, 118 Redshank, 55 Black-tailed Godwit and 1 Bar-tailed Godwit on the north shore. At Lytchett Fields there was a record count of 24 Green Sandpiper with 4 Spoonbill, 4 Common Sandpiper, 112 Redshank, 67 Lapwing, 66 Black-tailed Godwit, 7 Dunlin, 4 Greenshank and 3 Whimbrel in the bay. On the southern edge of the Wareham Channel 4 Spoonbill roosted with 83 Dunlin and c100 Black-tailed Godwit as 48 Little Egret flew into roost. 

The flying begins! LS0 looking really strong on the wing