There were more waders around to day with 4 Little Ringed Plover, 1 Black-tailed Godwit and 4 Lapwing on the Holton Lee Scrape and on Lytchett Fields the colour-ringed Greenshank from Montrose is now back in the harbour for its 4^th autumn and there were also 3 Little Ringed Plover, 35 Redshank, 3 Green Sandpiper, 1 Grey Plover and 1 Dunlin. At Arne an Osprey was high over the Wareham Channel, there were 2 Hobby over Hartland and a Marsh Harrier was over Swineham. We’re now also well into building our pens for this summers Osprey translocation with our new batch of 14 chicks arriving in only 3 weeks time! We’ll be speaking more about this in due course.

Osprey Translocation 2018 Begins!

There was a great find today when a Little Owl was found and photographed at Holton Lee, a species that’s been absent for almost a decade within the harbour. They used to breed at Lytchett Bay, Upton CP, Arne and Middlebere but none have been recorded from any of these sites in recent years. Hopefully its breeding on site and we could potentially see a mini revival. This also took the disappointment away of the American Royal Tern missing Poole Harbour completely yesterday and heading straight to Weymouth. Will it rock up here later in the summer? On the Asda building at Holes Bay there were 2 Peregrine again. At Lytchett Fields there were 2 Little Ringed Plover.

Little Owl – Holton Lee – Richard Stephenson

Well, we watched and waited for the Royal Tern to arrive on to the Brownsea Lagoon which in all honestly it should have done out of sheer politeness, but sadly it by-passed the harbour completely and decided to spend a brief part of its summer holiday in Weymouth…for an evening! There were still 4 Little Ringed Plover on Holton Pools along with a few Lapwing, 2 Gadwall and 3 Little Egret.

We’ll start off today with a species that hasn’t been seen in the harbour but in fact seen c75 miles east of us in West Sussex. An American Royal Tern which spent the latter part of last year and this winter in the Channel Islands appeared in the Sandwich Tern colony at Church Norton West Sussex yesterday evening. Despite the distance and the apparent remote chances of this bird appearing here, there’s actually an outside possibility it could appear within our own Sandwich Tern colony here on Brownsea Island. The reason we think this is because we saw an exact same situation last year when a rare Elegant Tern (the first confirmed for Britain) appeared in the same colony at Church Norton where it spent a few days before decamping to the tern colony on the Brownsea Lagoon for half a day. So, if you’re on Brownsea over the coming days please keep an eye out for a large tern with a long, bright orange bill. And if you see it…call us! Pleeeeease. 01202 641003 😉

Now back to the birds that were actually here. It was interesting to watch several Common Tern crossing the twin sails bridge site and the rough ground next to it, as we’d never witnessed this before. We were aware that terns follow the channel through into Holes Bay but always assumed they stuck to the channel and hadn’t considered that they’d take shortcuts across the rough ground and roads. Something to consider if and when that area becomes developed. The non-breeding female Marsh Harrier that’s been hanging around the harbour this summer was seen again in the west near Swineham. On the Brownsea Lagoon, Middlebere, Shipstal, the Wareham Channel and in Holes Bay little humbug Shelduck ducklings are beginning to appear and on Lytchett Fields the first newly fledged Redshank appeared a few days ago. All around the harbour now freshly fledged juvenile birds are beginning show and it won’t be long now (with July only being next weekend) that we begin seeing the return southward migration of both passerines and waders through Dorset.

What was presumed to be Osprey CJ7 was seen fishing in the Wareham Channel early morning on the low tide.

Didn’t think we’d be saying this anytime soon but it was actually good to feel a bit of rain on our faces today seeing as it’s been super dry of late. Still much of the same at present with a Spoonbill in Middlebere, an Osprey was out over the Wareham Channel, 1 Little ringed Plover at Holton Pools, 10 Ringed Plover and 2 Dunlin at Lytchett Fields, 2 Hobby were over Slepe Heath and newly reported were 2 Spotted Flycatcher near the waterworks at Lytchett Bay.

Up and coming events

We have a few events coming up over the coming weeks. Firstly, this Saturday June 23^rd we’re doing the guest commentary on a Brownsea Island Ferries Puffin cruise out of Poole Harbour and along the Jurassic Coast. For full details and to book on call 01929 462383.

Then on July 1^st and 15^th we’re hosting our Summer ‘Up with the lark’ Wareham Channel cruise. For full details and to book CLICK HERE

We have just 1 space left on our Poole Harbour Nightjar experience walk on July 13^th so to grab that CLICK HERE.

The undoubted highlight from today was that a pair of Avocet hatched two chicks on the Brownsea Lagoon. This is wholly significant because they’re (currently) the only Avocet pair in Dorset. A pair bred and hatched young last year too on the lagoon, in fact it looks as if one of this years birds is the same as it has a limp. But sadly the 3 chicks last year were predated by gulls over the course of the following week. Rumour has it that this summer there is also another pair sitting on eggs on the lagoon, so the Dorset population of breeding pairs could have potentially doubled in a single year! George Greens ‘Birds of Dorset’ states that Avocet have bred in the county before but it doesn’t state dates so its safe to say the any previous breeding success are truly historical rather than recent. There were a couple of early returning Little Ringed Plover about too with one on Lytchett Fields and another on Holton Pools with 8 Lapwing, 3 Black-tailed Godwit and 2 Oystercatcher at the latter site too. Hobby were again seen over Slepe Heath, Middlebere and one was further up the Frome Valley near East Holme. 

Little Ringed Plover – Lytchett Fields – Ian Ballam

This has been without doubt one of the best springs for Osprey in recent Poole Harbour history with birds present most days/weeks as of early March. There had been a few sightings of ‘an Osprey’ in the last few weeks but it was unknown whether it had a ring on or not so we were keen to try and get a fix on the bird to try and confirm an ID. Luckily we managed to find the bird mid-morning on a private part of the Arne Reserve (thanks to the RSPB for granting us access) and we were able to see it had a ring on it. With careful stalking we were able to get a number on the ring and sure enough it was CJ7. Had she been away and come back again or had she been here the whole time? Either way she obviously likes the harbour and finds it productive. But then again, we thought that about S1 last summer and he’s now on a nest looking for a female up at Rutland! The difference however is that a) S1 is a male and is keen to nest where he himself was raised which is typical for males, plus, last summer he wasn’t sexually mature and was just doing what 2^nd year Osprey do which is hang out in food rich areas for the summer. CJ7 being a three-year old female means she sexually mature now and could in theory be lured away from her natal site IF a male was to start courting her. Next spring (with luck) some of our trans-located birds will begin to come back, so is there a chance one of those could begin forming a bond with CJ7 should she return again? Sadly, breeding with any of our returning birds is unlikely as they won’t be fully sexually mature, but it could be start of something special??

Also at Arne today the first Crossbill of the autumn were on the move as 2 passed over south. Also present were 2 Hobby, 1 Cuckoo, 1 Woodlark, c6 Dartford Warbler and c10 Swift. At Lytchett Fields again there were 7 Green Sandpiper and a small number of commoner waders such as Redshank, Oystercatcher, Black-tailed Godwit and Lapwing.  At the PC World drain several young Blackcap were noted again and it seems some birds are really in need of their post-breeding moult! 

Female Osprey CJ7 – RSPB Arne – Paul Morton

Robin – Upton CP – John Pick

Nuthatch – Upton CP – John Pick

Once again the Green Sandpiper total at Lytchett Fields increased again today with 7 now present across the site. This is quite a high total for mid June and we wouldn’t expect to see this many until later in the month. Are we witnessing the early return of these birds because the spring was just simply ‘too late’, therefore not allowing them to breed? How many will we see arrive over the coming days and will it just be Green Sandpiper or will we see the early return of many other wader species? The only other species of note reported to us was a Hobby at Middlebere, 3 Spoonbill flying over the Wareham Channel and 2 Woodlark at Holton Lee. 

The return wader passage continued this AM with Lytchett Fields Green Sandpiper totals rising from 3 to 5 today and there was still a Grey Plover and Greenshank out on the fields too. It seems to be a good Hobby year in terms of numbers present, lets hope they all successfully breed but birds were seen hawking over Slepe Heath and Hartland, Arne, the Wareham bypass and at Morden Bog up to 6+ birds were present. At Holton Pools a Little Ringed Plover was on the new scrapes. There is a real absence of Spotted Flycatcher this summer so we’d be really keen to hear of any nesting in people’s gardens or if anyone knows of any sites then please also let us know. There are none at the traditional sites and spring passage was very limited this year. Around the harbour mixed-tit flocks are already forming and newly fledged Chiffchaff and blackcap are joining them and it won’t be long until the first Willow Warblers start joining them too. We also found a small colony of Silver-studded blue Butterfly on Lytchett Bay Heath which is actually a first record of this species for the whole of Lytchett Bay and a welcome addition to the Lytchett Bay non-avian list.

Little Ringed Plover – Holton Pools – Trevor Wilkinson

Silver-studded Blue Butterfly – Lytchett Bay Heath – Paul Morton