Today we hosted our annual free Family Bird Boat trip which is an extension to our hugely popular school bird boat project. The family trip which is hosted every December and titled ‘birding for beginners’ is open to anyone eager enough to come and learn a bit about their local environment. The trip is free and bookings are done on a first come first serve basis, so if you missed out this winter then please keep an eye out for our next one in December 2017! However, if you can’t wait that long we are carrying out our two new public bird boat tours in early 2017 and spaces are filling up fast! For more information CLICK HERE.

Highlights from the trip today included 4 Great Northern Diver off Brownsea, 2 Common Scoter off Goathorn, 12 Black-necked Grebe in central harbour and 3 in South Deep. On Shipstal there were c15 Spoonbill and the Brownsea Lagoon was packed with plenty of Teal, Wigeon, Gadwall and Shoveler along with decent sized flocks of Avocet, Black and Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Grey Plover, several Greenshank and 2 Spotted Redshank. At Lytchett Fields the Green-winged Teal and Lesser Yellowlegs were still present, the Cattle Egret was still along Holme Lane and a Great Grey Shrike was seen on Hartland Moor, which potentially could be the same bird seen at Arne on Wednesday last week. In Holes Bay north there was a good mix of birds with a Ruff being an exceptional find in one of the fields to the north in amongst 630 Black-tailed Godwit, also 14 Knot and 435 Dunlin on the mud with 21 Shoveler, 10 Pintail and good numbers of Curlew, Avocet, Redshank, Gadwall, Teal and Wigeon.