Well, well, well…..what a great Christmas present.

Before we (and you) see in the big day, we want to quickly share some exciting news we received today. About around 3pm we got a Facebook message from a lady called Joanna Dailey stating she was down in The Gambia at a site where there were currently 20+ Osprey hanging around with one that had a blue leg ring coded 019. The message also came with a photo clearly showing the leg ring, and low and behold, it’s one of our 2019 translocated chicks making it’s self at home in the Gunjur Quarry area in southern Gambia. This is a brilliant piece of news as it shows that at least one (and hopefully more) of this years youngsters made it safe and sound to Africa.

We’d like to say a huge thanks to Joanna for her speedy news and for allowing us to use her photo. We’d also like to thank her guide too, Fansu Bojang who showed Joanna the site with all these over-wintering Osprey.  Joanna also kindly said she’s try and send some video too, so when all the Christmas festivities are over we’ll get this posted for you asap.

Bird news today was fairly quiet as we’d expected but the Marsh Harriers were putting on a good show at Holton Pools with a Water Pipit there too. From the top of Old Harry 2 Great Northern Diver went by and 3 Black-necked Grebe were in Studland bay and 8 Ring-necked Parakeet were in the South Beach car park. The Siberian Chiffchaff was still present along the North Walls in Wareham and 2 Firecrest were on Slepe Heath.

Osprey chick 019 photographed in The Gambia on Christmas Eve – Joanna Dailey

Marsh Harrier – Holton Pools – Alison Copland