Spring is creeping in slowly but surely with many birds now sub-singing at dawn, and in fact along the Frome Valley this morning a Skylark was in full song high in the sky near Holmebridge. Again, calmer weather helped with sightings and around the Studland Peninsular there was plenty going on with 18 Black-necked Grebe, 1 Slavonian Grebe and 1 Great Northern Diver off Middle Beach and 2 Sandwich Tern, 1 Slavonian Grebe and 4 Black-necked Grebe off Shell Bay. Off South Beach 4 Black-necked Grebe were off shore and on Knoll Beach 14 Sanderling were on the tide line. From the Houseboats the Black-throated Diver was off the SE corner of Brownsea before flying out of the harbour mouth and there were 3 Great Northern Diver in South Deep with 4 Black-necked Grebe. Along Holme Lane 3 Cattle Egret were in the field and 6 were in fields along Nutcrack Lane. The male Black Redstart was again in the courtyard of flats out behind the Thistle Hotel. We also set up a camera trap along the Frome Valley this last week and having not ‘camera trapped’ anything other than 3 Rats and a single Robin, we couldn’t belive it when we checked the memory card this morning only to find a small family of 3 Otters had triggered the camera in the early hours of the morning. They even took a snotty liking to the camera and gave it a good old sniff before moving on up the river!