Having been a fairly calm and settled night last night, we were hopeful for a more settled day today, but alas, as the curtains were drawn back this morning, more wind and rain was hammering the windows, making birding, once again, quite tricky. We also saw today (like we see most winters) that there’s a proposed cold spell developing, very similar to the Beast from the East that occurred in 2018. The early suggestion is that sometime later in January things could turn pretty snowy, cold and wintery. Whether it will or not, we’ll just have to wait and see, but with daffodils already in flower and frog spawn already being laid (in Cornwall), it could be quite a shock to the (eco) system if this does come to fruition.

Today there were some excellent wildfowl counts including a massive total of 312 Shoveler in Holes Bay NW (a site record) and 366 Pintail in Brands Bay (2nd highest site count). The Cattle Egret flock were on Wareham Common again this morning with 21 counted, but the others probably weren’t far away. Also off Jerry’s Point and around Brands Bay were 4+ Great Northern Diver, 2 Black-necked Grebe, 1 Slavonian Grebe, 4 Goldeneye and 28 Red-breasted Merganser. In Middlebere there were 3 Spotted Redshank and 12 Spoonbill.

Mistle Thrush – Carey Secret Garden

Stonechat – Carey Secret Garden