The weather can’t make its mind up at the moment. We all love a cold crisp winters day, but when a cold NW 20mph wind gets going the draw of a warm fire and hot coffee seems to take over. However, we were still out covering much of the harbour today with our Dorset Discovery winter tour group which saw us visit Brownsea Island, followed by a boat tour around the harbour. Brownsea was busy with the Merlin terrorising all the Grey Plover and Dunlin, 9 Spoonbill were on the northern edge of the lagoon and 2 Spotted Redshank and 2 Greenshank were in front of the Lower Hide.  The lagoon was also holding good numbers Avocet, Black-tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher and c100 Bar-tailed Godwit. The strong wind made viewing tricky on our boat tour but 2 Great Northern Diver, 2 Common Scoter and good numbers of Red-breasted Merganser were the highlights. At Holes Bay the Smew was still in Holes Bay SE and at Lytchett Fields the Green-winged Teal and Lesser Yellowlegs were on Sherford and French’s pools.  At Middlebere a ringtail Hen Harrier was photographed by local photographer Simon Kidner which has to be one of the best photos ever taken of this species within the harbour…bravo Simon!! At Holes Bay NW the Ruff was back in the cattle field with c1000 Black-tailed Godwit. Out in the Wareham Channel 2 Marsh Harrier were hunting and the Starling murmuration at South Haven, Studland was still going strong.  

Hen Harrier – Middlebere – Simon Kidner

Smew – Holes Bay – Ian Ballam

Ruff – Holes Bay NW – Ian Ballam