With the wind blowing strong from the west, there was hope of a few waif and strays getting blown in. November is classic for birds like Little Auk to get blown into the harbour and with the strong winds forecast later in the week it will be well worth checking open areas of the harbour when things settle down again. We tend to see a rise in the number of Great Northern Diver within the harbour after strong winds too as birds enter the harbour to shelter, and with them can often be the odd Red-throated and Black-throated Diver. Long-tailed Duck are another bird to keep a look out for after this week along with Black Guillemot and our last Surf Scoter turned up after a period of strong winds from the South West, so even though the weather may seem a little anti-social the potential for good birds is mouth watering. Sightings from today were limited though being a wet and windy Monday withShell Bay/South Haven seeing 11 Sanderling and 1 Great Northern Diver. Jerry’s Point had 51 Oystercatchers, 10 Red-breasted Mergansers, 4 Great Crested Grebe, 6 Brent Geese, 2 Grey Plover, 10 Turnstone and 1 Goldeneye. Brands Bay reported 8 Fieldfare, 1 Redwing, 101 Wigeon, 12 Pintail, 20 Teal, 48 Lapwing, 51 Curlew, 40 Great Black-backed Gulls, 123 Shelduck, 123 Brent Geese, 7 Bar-tailed Godwit and 10 Black-tailed Godwit. Studland Bay from Middle Beach saw 1 Razorbill, 1 Great Northern Diver and 14 Black Necked Grebe. And finally at Middlebere there was 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 ringtail Hen Harrier, 1 Peregrine,1 Yellow legged Gull, 470 Teal, 16 Curlew, 14 Dunlin, 22 Shelduck, 12 Wigeon, 1 Great White Egret and 1 Chiffchaff along the track. There was also a really nice selection of duck species viewable at close range from ‘The Stone Bench’ at Upton CP which included Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Shoveler, Shelduck, Tufted Duck and Mallard. There’s no doubta good selection of commoner over-wintering species would havebeen present in their usual haunts, but you just need to enthusiastic enough to get out and look!