Having had zero hours of sun for over two weeks, we were at least treated to 5 minutes today, which we hope is paving the way for nearly a full day of sun tomorrow. Clear sky’s combined with the forecasted northerly breeze may be what it takes to see male Osprey ‘511’ finally decide to leave? He’s stayed 2-weeks longer than last year, but to be fair, with high pressure over the last 2-weeks and no tail wind to get him going, then we’re not surprised he’s stayed. Conditions tomorrow are perfect for an Osprey to migrate, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Between holmebridge and Wool 55 Cattle Egret were feeding on the floodplain and a Goosander was feeding in the river near Holmebridge. Lst night we headed out to Sunnyside for our first winter ringing session of the season and there were actually good numbers of birds about despite being so ‘early’ in the season. We saw 6+ Jack Snipe, 5 Woodcock and 20+ Common Snipe and ringed 1 of each. This morning a Black Redstart was on the pavilion roof in the main Sandbanks car park and 55 Shag flew into the harbour this morning. At Hatch Pond there were 2 Bearded Tit and the drake Pochard was still there, plus, 4 more ‘new’ drake Pochard appeared on Swineham GP where 3 Ruff were also still on the flooded ‘Stilt Pools’. There were 3 White-tailed Eagle (our local pair and one of the recently arrived youngsters) in and around the harbour today, moving between Brands Bay and the Wareham Channel.

Jack Snipe – Sunnyside 

Woodcock – Sunnyside