Happy New Year everyone! The Poole Harbour birding year started off with a bang today with several good species recorded. The Black Guillemot has finally entered the harbour and was seen feeding of the SE corner of Brownsea. The Great White Egret was seen again on Littlesea at dusk. It was confirmed that there are indeed 2 Red-necked Grebe in the Studland area as one was feeding off Shell Bay whilst another was off South Beach. There were also 6 Black-necked Grebe and 10 Common Scoter off Middle Beach and a Slavonian Grebe 3 Black-necked Grebe and 2 Sandwich Tern off Shell Beach. A group of 3 Great Northern Diver were off the Brownsea north shore. A Little gull was seen over Furzey Island and then later seen at Lytchett Bay. An impressive 5 Hen Harrier were noted going into roost and Marsh Harrier were seen at several sites around the harbour.  There was a Merlin at Middlebere along with the usual channel species. Spoonbills were seen in Brands Bay, Lytchett Bay, Arne Bay and Brownsea Lagoon. Today’s video is of the Spotted Redshank flock that’s been choosing to feed at the mouth of the outflow of Holes Bay over the last few days…

TIP: To watch in HD, when watching the video, hover your curser over the screen so the panel at the bottom of the video screen appears. Click on the cog shaped symbol and then click on 1080HD. This will turn the video into HD after a few seconds