Another day, another White-tailed Eagle within the Poole Harbour recording area! However, the difference today was that someone actually saw it! None of the previous five or six occurrences within the harbour recording area in the last 12 months were seen by human eyes, rather the data from the eagles sat tags frustratingly letting us know several hours too late. However, ‘eagle-eyed’ Liz Woodford managed to clock one heading north over Lytchett Bay this afternoon which is presumably the same one that was seen flying over Dorchester at 10am today. Despite it’s brief appearance today, the recent frequent occurrence of the IOW sea eagles within the harbour/Dorset area provides an exciting and brief insight of things to come over the coming years here on the south coast…..exciting times! Also (although not in Dorset) the first Osprey of the spring returned to Rutland Water in the Midlands today meaning the floodgates will now be open and Osprey passage will almost certainly pick up now over the coming week, hopefully with the first harbour spring record sometime before the weekend is out. Also today a Cattle Egret dropped on to Lytchett Fields early morning and a ringtail Hen Harrier was in the Lower Frome valley near Ridge before being seen to circle high and head NW. There were 2 Long-tailed Duck still off Jerry’s Point and 1 Great Northern Diver. A Wheatear was on Hartland Moor and 2 Sand Martin were over Swineham GP where 5 Pochard were present. The 3 Peregrines were all active in the Barclays, Asda building area with quite a lot of calling this evening apparently. At Shipstal, Arne there were still 4 Spoonbill and a single Marsh Harrier was at Swineham.

Northern Wheatear – Hartland Moor – Garry Hayman