What a beautiful day for a Poole Harbour Osprey Project Tour! We spent 2 hours cruising up the Wareham Channel this morning while talking about the in’s and out’s of our flagship project. With only our resident summering pair (CJ7 & 022) in the harbour at the moment viewing Ospreys is a real challenge, but there is always a chance of encountering an Osprey if we’re lucky. The exceptionally calm morning meant the calls of Skylark, Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting, Redshank and more could all be heard clearly from the boat across the western shores. After cruising up the River Frome quickly and finding an Egyptian Goose on the Swineham scrapes, we returned to the Wareham channel and were treated to 2 Osprey successfully hunting! To add to the excitement, a Marsh Harrier was patrolling Gigger’s Island while one of the Ospreys was fishing, offering great views of both birds in the same field of view.

Late this afternoon we had an interesting moment when prepping some work at the Osprey release site, when we accidentally flushed an Osprey that was sat in some trees near by. This is classic behaviour for a 2-year old, returning to the natal site upon its return. Sadly we didn’t get good enough views to see if it was ringed, but its highly likely it will be one of our 2019 birds, either 022 making a visit, or quite possibly anew arrival? We’ll be keeping a close eye on things over the coming days.

More Red Kite were moving around today with individuals over Hartland, Middlebere and Hamworthy. The 3 juv Peregrine are now really active and very visual, chasing each up up and down the length of the top balcony. If you’re in Poole anytime this week, it’s well worth popping your bino’s in the car and stopping off to watch them. It’s a great site for the centre of Poole. There was also more evidence of return passage with 10 Avocet in Middlebere which is quite a high mid-June count.

Joe Parker

Dartford Warbler – Garry Hayman