Another wet and mild day which was largely uneventful until late afternoon when we received a call from local birder Rene Goad informing us that one of the juvenile Poole Peregrine Falcons was stuck behind a glass balcony close to the Barclays building. We left the bird alone for quite a while to see if it could make it’s own way out, but after several hours it became obvious that the chick was well and truly flummoxed by the glass balcony and therefore had to carried out. Barclays Bank kindly let us enter the building to head up to the top floor and put the chick back up on the nest ledge, where it promptly flew off then back again and was immediately joined by it’s sibling. Hopefully the two youngsters are beginning to work out what dangers lurk around the town, and learn to avoid them over the coming weeks.

Secondly, having not been on the nest all day, Ospreys 022 and CJ7 arrived and had a proper lovers spat over a half eaten bit of fish. CJ7 was determined to have some of his lunch with 022 adamant it was all going to be his, in what then played out to be a funny tussle between the pair being broadcast live to the world! We hope they get on better next year.

There were good numbers of Swift around again today, certainly over the Old Town with 30+ at one point and 20-30 over Lower Hamworthy. Some late news, a Red Kite was sat in a tree up on Hartland at the weekend, a rare occurrence in the harbour with 99.9% of Red Kite sightings being of fly overs. There are also 3 pairs of Sandwich Tern incubating on the gull islands in the Wareham Channel, something we’ve never seen before away from the Brownsea Lagoon.

Elsewhere the first returning waders were logged today with Common Sandpiper at Longham. It was over this period last summer June that the first Spotted Redshank of the autumn appeared at Lytchett Fields, and with the days getting shorter as of tomorrow, let the autumn migration floodgates swing open and fully begin.

Paul Morton

CJ7 and 022 Fish fight on nest cam

Red Kite – Hartland – Nick Williams