There was certainly a lot more going on today than yesterday! The continued warm weather obviously got the White-tailed Eagles going with sightings of individuals over Wareham Common, Sandford and the Wareham Channel. There was also Red Kite on the move again with 7 over Carey, 5 over Lytchett Bay, 1 over Fleetsbridge and 2 over RSPB Arne. The Poole Peregrine chick(s) have finally come into view with the first sighting of a chick precariously walking along the balcony edge of the nesting ledge. It’s not known whether there’s more than one yet but a group of keen watchers are visiting daily currently to keep an eye on them. On the Brownsea Lagoon there was a small number of waders including 28 Bar-tailed Godwit, 6 Dunlin, 1 Redshank, 1 Avocet and 1 Grey Plover as well as 2 dark-bellied Brent Geese. Yesterday a Great White Egret headed down the Piddle Valley.

Finally, we had some really exciting news today. Huge thanks to Tim Mackrill for speedy news and photographer Robert Lewis for allowing us to share this exciting picture, which appears to show an Osprey with blue ring 374. The photo was taken on May 13th in SW Wiltshire by Robert who recently shared the photo with Tim. The reason it’s so exciting is because blue 374 is one of our 2021 males, which is of course another great step for the project, because like male 022, it’s the males that eventually set up the territories in their natal area. In this case, Poole Harbour. Being two-years old 374 will probably spend the summer exploring the south coast, hence why he went to Wiltshire, but will hopefully return to the harbour area in July or August and begin looking for potential future nest sites in this area. There’s a high probability that he’s already visited the harbour upon his arrival, but just sneaked through un-seen. In fact on May 12th (the day before he was in Wiltshire) an Osprey was seen near the nest site with 022 briefly, which could easily have been him. This is fantastic news, and who knows, maybe the un-ringed female from earlier in the year may eventually find a mate and settle in Poole Harbour after all. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up in Wales!

Male Osprey 374 – Wiltshire on May 13th – Robert Lewis

Peregrine on Barclays Balcony –