With the cold weather continuing into today and still some settled snow around some areas of the harbour it was likely there was going to be some element of cold weather movement, and that was evident with 20 Golden Plover on Baiter Park at dawn, plus another at Middlebere. Sadly the Baiter birds didn’t stay long as the area soon became quite busy. Disappointingly though, other than the Golden Plover, there were no other signs of other wader, sea duck, or even thrush movement in response to the cold. In fact, the cold, still air seemed ‘birdless’ in many areas. The ‘old faithful’ pulled through though and there was still a decent range of birds to be had with 1 Great White Egret still on Wareham Common and another at Swineham with 5 Cattle Egret also on Wareham Common. Off Swineham Point 2 White-tailed Eagle were chasing each other around briefly in the gloom and up to 6 Marsh Harrier were transiting back and fourth around the mouth of the Frome. Off Jerry’s Point there was only 1 Red-throated Diver, 1 Great Northern Diver and 1 Common Scoter and in Studland Bay 6 Black-necked Grebe, 1 Slavonian Grebe and 11 Common Scoter. Out in Central Harbour 2 other Red-throated Diver were seen from our School Bird Boat this morning and a flock of c300 Cormorant were feeding/hunting in the mouth of the Wareham Channel off Hamworthy Beach. Merlin were seen hunting over Wareham Common and Hartland stud where 98 Fieldfare were feeding. At the Shipstal end of Middlebere 2 Hen Harrier were seen from the Middlebere ‘lookout’ and 5 Spoonbill were at the top end of the channel.

Golden Plover – Baiter Park – Martin Adams