Well, they keep on coming! We’ve now gone from just 1 White-tailed Eagle in and around the harbour at the beginning of the week to 4 today. Late yesterday afternoon saw the arrival of another new individual in the shape of 4th calendar year male G463, meaning this week we’ve had 3rd cal year female G801, 3rd cal year male G812, 4th cal year female G466 and yesterdays new arrival G463. Big thanks to the Roy Dennis foundation for this info, it’s fascinating to see so many individuals continually return to the harbour. Whether it’s because it’s a favoured feeding site, or because it’s a suitable potential territory, only time will tell, but today people were treated some incredible spectacles as several of the birds were seen interacting over the Wareham Channel. Most notably, a pre-longed interaction between the two male individuals G812 (M) and G463 (M). With the settled weather due to continue we could see more arrivals (and departures) over the coming days, but with two 4th calendar year birds now present it could be an exciting couple of months.

Also today, there were 2 Marsh Tit in trees next to the Norden Sewage works and there were also 6+ Common Chiffchaff, a Siberian Chiffchaff and 2 Firecrest, and at the PCW Drain, 6+ Common Chiffchaff and a Firecrest. At Hatch Pond the Bearded Tit was there again on the eastern edge. Off Jerry’s Point there were 6 Black-necked Grebe and 1 Slavonian Grebe. In Middlebere 3 Spoonbill, 1 Spotted Redshank and 2 Marsh Harrier were logged and on Swineham GP there was 1 Pochard. 

Thanks also to Garry Hayman who recently consolidated all the info from the 2022 Middlebere Hide diary which provides totals, first dates etc over the course of the year. In total there were 121 different species recorded in the diary for 2022 (105 in 2021).

White-tailed Eagles G466 and G812 over the Wareham Channel – Paula and John Thorpe