This wonderful weather sounds like it’s going to come to end come Friday, so we were out today making the most of it. Plenty of highlights with 2 adult Curlew Sandpiper on the Brownsea Lagoon with 5 Common Sandpiper, 5 Greenshank, 55 Dunlin, c50 Redshank and decent numbers of Black-tailed Godwit. It was also a joy to see so many fledged Common and Sandwich Tern dispersed with juvenile Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls. There also seemed to be an arrival of Little Egret with 13 roosting on the north face of Brownsea, an area we’ve never logged or seen them before. Late July and early August sees peak numbers of Little Egret so plenty could be coming in now and settling in new areas. At Swineham a flock of 9 Common Snipe bombing around was also a strange late July record. There were 2 Egyptian Geese on the Swineham scrape along with an adult Yellow-legged Gull and a juvenile Shoveler Duck and 1 Teal. At Lytchett Fields a Grasshopper Warbler was flushed from the main path, at Studland a Great White Egret is already back at the Little Sea roost and in Brands Bay there were 3 Whimbrel. Above Lower Hamworthy a decent flock of c50 Swift were feeding with 28 over Fleetsbridge and there were 2 Turnstone off Hamworthy Beach.

Stonechat – Swineham