A really interesting day today in many regards. Firstly, a Wigeon appeared out of nowhere in Holes Bay NE this morning, which is over a month earlier than the ‘normal’ first returning individuals, which don’t normally appear until the last week of August. Perhaps this is a wandering over-summering individual, or perhaps breeding success has been so poor in northern Europe this year that birds are already beginning to arrive back??!! Our Summer Safari Cruise this AM was a busy raptor-fest with a fly over Osprey in the Wareham Channel (more on that later), 2 White-tailed Eagles, 1 Marsh Harrier over Swineham, 3 Hobby (2 Arne Moors, 1 Swineham), 1 Peregrine, a few soaring Buzzard and 2 Kestrel. Not a bad haul! The Brownsea Lagoon held 3 Avocet, 2 Ringed Plover, 2 Grey Plover , 2 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Curlew, 4 Greenshank, 16 Turnstone, 21 Dunlin and 2 Common Sandpiper. A new ringing site at Carey Secret Garden has just started operating and this morning the team there caught the first autumn migrant Sedge Warbler of the year and the first migrant juv Willow Warbler of the autumn.

Then, this afternoon, we received some photos from one of our trail cameras on another harbour nest platform of an Osprey eating a fish. Our resident male 022 has been using various platforms over the last few weeks, so we assumed it was likely to be him. However, when we recived the HD images we were thrilled to see it was our ‘missing’ three-year old male 374! He was last seen in the harbour about 3 months ago, and had only been sighted a few times in Hampshire since, so his whereabouts has been quite a mystery. Then, to our shock, an hour later we recived another photo of not 1 but 2 Ospreys on the nest, one which was definitely 374, the other which was an unidentified ringed female! Frustratingly, the HD image didn’t allow us to read the ring number, and we weren’t able to ID her, which is a real shame. Hopefully they’ll come back to the platform again tomorrow and we’ll get a positive ID on who this new arrival is.

There is an extra element to this story. We also caught our resident male 022 on the same nest cam, giving new kid on the block ‘374’ a hard time, which may account for why ‘374’ hasn’t stuck around this spring and summer. We hope that because there’s a new female on the scene, it may give 374 more cause to stay around and hold his ground. Or….will he/they just disappear again in the blink of an eye, just like he did earlier in the spring? This evening there was also a report of an Osprey flying off north over Nuffield in Poole, heading over Canford Heath……was this 374 leaving again? We’ll just have to wait and see. Regardless, this is another exciting development of the Poole Harbour Osprey saga!!!

Male Osprey 374 arriving back earlier this afternoon

Male Osprey 374 being joined by a mystery female about an hour after arrival

Resident male 022 coming and sticking his beak in where it’s not wanted and seeing off the ‘new pair’

Early returning Wigeon – Holes Bay – Tony Furnell