I received an excited text yesterday morning from one of the regulars on our ‘BoPH’ guided walks Barbara Bissett, explaining she was currently on the weekly Arne Wednesday walk and their group was watching an Osprey out in the Wareham Channel as another possible was drifting high overhead. This timing is pretty much spot on as we tend to start seeing the first autumn birds from mid July onwards. Its hard to say where these birds are coming from as they could either be failed breeders from further north already heading south, early fledged young looking for a decent place to feed for the next few weeks, or possibly a bird that’s not even attempted to breed and has just been touring the country all summer. We should hopefully see Osprey numbers steadily rise over the next six weeks with the Wareham and Middlebere Channel being the best places to look. I was also informed that on the same-guided walk, a Red Kite drifted low over Middlebere and good numbers of Dartford Warbler are still about with 6 Woodlark also seen feeding on a footpath. If you’ve never been on one of the FREE Arne Wednesday walks I can highly recommend them, they start at 10am every week rain or shine! Talking of texts, as I type I’ve just received news that the first glimpse of a Marsh Harrier chick has been noted off Swineham. Local Harrier water Peter Hadrill has been carefully monitoring both nests all summer and has been patiently waiting for fledging to take place. Now the first has been seen, activity should really increase over the coming weeks with hopefully the second nest showing signs of fledging soon too. There were 5 Spoonbill in the Middlebere Channel along with 100 Black-tailed Godwit and 50 Curlew. At Lytchett Bay there are still 3 Little Ringed Plover present, also 1 Spotted Redshank, 5 Green Sandpiper and two very funky looking Water Rail chicks. Autumn ringing has now got underway in the harbour with several sites up and running and it obvious already that local birds have had a good breeding year with good numbers of young birds about. You can read about this morning’s session HERE.