This morning looked like it could be good for some Wood Pigeon migration, despite some high cloud lingering in the north. Some of our team started viewing early from a viewpoint at Constitution Hill, and although initially a bit stop-start, it finally got going about 8:00am with flocks of between 300-500 passing high over Evening Hill and away SW high over Brownsea. The Wood pigeon monitoring session lasted until 10:30am by which time 16,085 Wood pigeon had migrated through. This is a pretty low total compared to some previous years where totals including c70,000 and c160,000 (2010) passed over in a single morning. Conditions tomorrow potentially look good, so if you’re interested in viewing this spectacle look out across towards Evening Hill, Sandbanks and look high! Some flocks come in low and in small numbers, where as other flocks can almost be stratospherically high, and be in huge numbers. Of course, on mornings when the conditions are good for Wood Pigeons it means the conditions are good for lots of other species too, and there was a good supporting cast in-between pigeon flocks. Also high over the harbour included 24 Fieldfare, 102 Redwing, 2 Brambling, 4 Bullfinch, 12 Skylark, 2 Woodlark, c100 Starling, c200 finch sp, 5 Sparrowhawk, 2 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 7 Jay, 2 different Peregrine, 9 Egyptian Geese all SW and one of the White-tailed Eagles was circling high over central harbour. Sadly there was no sign of yesterdays Spotted Sandpiper today, but thats not to say it’s gone. It could easily turn up again somewhere over the coming days and we’re sure they’ll be plenty of people keeping an eye out! There were 2 Red-throated Diver and 2 Great Northern Diver in through the harbour entrance this morning, heading in to feed for the day. The wintery scene continued with the first 2 Slavonian Grebe off Redhorn Quay out in South Deep, along with 2 Black-necked Grebe there with a Common Scoter, 2 Goldeneye, 11 Red-breasted Merganser and 3 Great Northern Diver. There was a Curlew Sandpiper at Lytchett Fields with 182 Dunlin and a Water Pipit was seen, plus 3 Spoonbill were present there, the Common Scoter was still in Lytchett Bay and both White-tailed Eagles were seen high over the Wareham Channel. There were 2 Great White Egret in Middlebere, a ringtail Hen Harrier was at Swineham and a Merlin was in Middlebere. Finally, our new Bird feeder Cam, which we recently installed just outside the walls of the Carey Secret Garden has not only been attracting decent numbers of Goldfinch with 34 logged this afternoon, but it also drew in a night visitor in the shape of a stunning young Badger. You can watch our new LIVE Feeder Cam 24/7 either on our website HERE or on our Birds of Poole Harbour YouTube channel HERE.

Wood Pigeon Migration high over Poole Harbour this AM

Goldfinch madness on new Feeder cam

Early evening visit by Badger on Feeder Cam