Wow, what a year, and what a great end to the year too with the discovery of a Green-winged Teal in Brands Bay this afternoon. The Black Guillemot was seen briefly off the harbour mouth again whilst 3 Purple Sandpiper gave exceptional views down to 5 feet on the sea wall at North Haven. There were 32 Spoonbill at Arne, and another 2 feeding in the outflow at Holes Bay, again giving stunning views down to less than 10m away as were 3 Spotted Redshank. Out of Middle beach there were 13 Common Scoter, 18 Black-necked Grebe and 2 Slavonian Grebe. Both Holes Bay and Brands Bay were both full of birds again on the low tide consisting of many Teal, Wigeon, Shelduck, Redshank, Oystercatcher, Avocet, Grey Plover, Black-tailed Godwit etc. The rising tide at Shore Road pushed 15 Sanderling close into the sea wall and 100+ Bar-tailed Godwit. 2014 has been an exceptional year for birds in Poole Harbour and I’ll be writing an annual review in the coming weeks, but until then thanks again for all your support and interest in our work and we wish you a very happy and birdy 2015.

I spent today videoing some of the harbours ‘best show’ off birds and will upload them over the coming days, but for now I hope you enjoy these Purple Sandpiper that were feeding at North Haven today and HAPPY NEW YEAR! (TIP: To watch in HD, when watching the video, hover your curser over the screen so the panel at the bottom of the video screen appears. Click on the cog shaped symbol and then click on 1080HD. This will turn the video into HD after a few seconds)