A quite chilly SW wind was whipping across the area today making viewing quite challenging, but tucked away in the sand dunes at Studland, the Snow Bunting showed on and off, as it played hide and seek for a few hours as it disappeared intermittently. It was favouring the section of beach on the edge of the dunes, 250m north of where the track leads on to the nudist beach. Without doubt the best bird of the day was a fly over Twite at Branksome Dene, found (heard) by Nick Hopper, which was with a small flock of Linnet as it headed west. This is the first harbour record since 1983 and to put into context how rare they are in the harbour, there have been almost as many Long-billed Dowitcher in Poole Harbour as there have been Twite! The Forster’s Tern was seen off Shipstal Beach, RSPB Arne again yesterday and this morning both White-tailed Eagles were in the Wareham Channel. At Lytchett Bay there were 3 Water Pipit with at least 1 which was colour-ringed.

Snow Bunting – Studland Beach – Nick Hopper

Well, you couldn’t blame people for totally writing off today when pulling back the curtains, as driving rain and strong wind pummelled the harbour all morning. Then by stroke of luck, at lunch time, the rain pushed through and the wind disappeared just as our Winter Safari Cruise got underway, where our group were treated to a mouth watering range of birds during the course of the afternoon. There were an incredible 11 Great Northern Diver spread across the harbour (4 central harbour, 3 Wareham Channel, 4 Jerry’s Point) including an adult in near full breeding plumage. Also logged was 1 Red-throated Diver in central harbour, 4 Great White Egret (1 Arne Bay, 3 Swineham), 1 Cattle Egret at Swineham, great view of female White-tailed Eagle G466 flying along Keysworth, 5 Marsh Harrier, c15 Bearded Tit feeding on the edge of the reed bed just meters off the side of the boat, c400 Black-tailed Godwit flying overhead as they moved up and down the Frome Valley, c300 Avocet spread between the Wareham Channel and Brownsea Lagoon, 5 Spoonbill with 2 feeding off the side of the boat in the Wareham Channel, 3 Kingfisher (1 Swineham, 1 Brownsea, 1 Furzey slipway), 1 female type Goldeneye off Goathorn, 8 Red-breasted Merganser (South Deep) and c300 sinensis Cormorant moving around in a feeding pack. When you add to all that, the decent numbers of Wigeon, Teal, Curlew, Dunlin, Oystercatcher and other regular wintering species it was a classic early winter spectacle. Full Winter Safari trip list can be seen HERE. There was some reward for braving the grot this AM when James Leaver found a Snow Bunting on Studland Beach in the driving wind and rain. It remained all day on the beach at the end of the track that leads to the nudist beach. Apparently (only) wellies must be worn! There was a decent evening roost in Brands Bay with 36 Great Crested Grebe, 2 Black-necked Grebe and 22 Red-breasted Merganser and today the first three figure count of Pintail was logged with 137 also in Brands Bay. In Lytchett Bay both the recent Common Scoter and a storm driven Great Northern Diver were both in the bay, highlighting just how stormy it’s been recently as both species are incredibly rare in the Lytchett Bay area. 15 Marsh Harrier were around the west harbour roost this evening and an a Hen Harrier was seen over Keysworth.

Bearded Tit from this afternoons Winter Safari Cruise – Swineham Point – John Thorpe

Red-throated Diver from this afternoons Winter Safari Cruise – Central Harbour – John Thorpe

Snow Bunting – Studland Beach – Rob Johnson

Although superficially it looked good for more Wood Pigeon migration this morning, a big bank of cloud sitting to the south potentially halted any big movements, and as it happened there wasn’t much of a push, although a reasonable 13,870 still went through between sunrise and 9:30am, but it very quickly died off and not much else was moving at all. Also logged from Constitution Hill viewpoint were 43 Redwing, 1 Woodlark, small numbers of common finches, 1 Peregrine, 3 Sparrowhawk and 150 Cormorant lifted from Brownsea. There were 3 Water Pipit at Lytchett Bay, 1 of which was colour-ringed by Stour Ringing Group. It was good to see a photo of the Forster’s Tern appear on Twitter this afternoon, although the photo was from Thursday last week and it hasn’t been seen since. Regardless, this means it will almost certainly be around, and looks as if it could potentially over-winter? Maybe it’s hooked up with it’s North American counterpart, the Spotted Sandpiper somewhere in the harbour, discussing on travel plans back home?! There was a male Hen Harrier in Middlebere where there were 23 Spoonbill and 4 Spotted Redshank and there was a ringtail Hen Harrier at Swineham this morning. At Lytchett Bay, the team there received some great information back of a colour-ringed Curlew that was seen at Lytchett Fields on October 28th, explaining that it had originally been rung as a juvenile in Finland at Säisänperä on 1st July this year. We don’t get many Finnish ringing recoveries, so this is a great recovery.

Colour-ringed Curlew photographed at Lytchett Fields on October 28th – Ian Ballam

Google Map highlighting potential Curlew journey from fledging site to over-wintering site

This morning looked like it could be good for some Wood Pigeon migration, despite some high cloud lingering in the north. Some of our team started viewing early from a viewpoint at Constitution Hill, and although initially a bit stop-start, it finally got going about 8:00am with flocks of between 300-500 passing high over Evening Hill and away SW high over Brownsea. The Wood pigeon monitoring session lasted until 10:30am by which time 16,085 Wood pigeon had migrated through. This is a pretty low total compared to some previous years where totals including c70,000 and c160,000 (2010) passed over in a single morning. Conditions tomorrow potentially look good, so if you’re interested in viewing this spectacle look out across towards Evening Hill, Sandbanks and look high! Some flocks come in low and in small numbers, where as other flocks can almost be stratospherically high, and be in huge numbers. Of course, on mornings when the conditions are good for Wood Pigeons it means the conditions are good for lots of other species too, and there was a good supporting cast in-between pigeon flocks. Also high over the harbour included 24 Fieldfare, 102 Redwing, 2 Brambling, 4 Bullfinch, 12 Skylark, 2 Woodlark, c100 Starling, c200 finch sp, 5 Sparrowhawk, 2 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 7 Jay, 2 different Peregrine, 9 Egyptian Geese all SW and one of the White-tailed Eagles was circling high over central harbour. Sadly there was no sign of yesterdays Spotted Sandpiper today, but thats not to say it’s gone. It could easily turn up again somewhere over the coming days and we’re sure they’ll be plenty of people keeping an eye out! There were 2 Red-throated Diver and 2 Great Northern Diver in through the harbour entrance this morning, heading in to feed for the day. The wintery scene continued with the first 2 Slavonian Grebe off Redhorn Quay out in South Deep, along with 2 Black-necked Grebe there with a Common Scoter, 2 Goldeneye, 11 Red-breasted Merganser and 3 Great Northern Diver. There was a Curlew Sandpiper at Lytchett Fields with 182 Dunlin and a Water Pipit was seen, plus 3 Spoonbill were present there, the Common Scoter was still in Lytchett Bay and both White-tailed Eagles were seen high over the Wareham Channel. There were 2 Great White Egret in Middlebere, a ringtail Hen Harrier was at Swineham and a Merlin was in Middlebere. Finally, our new Bird feeder Cam, which we recently installed just outside the walls of the Carey Secret Garden has not only been attracting decent numbers of Goldfinch with 34 logged this afternoon, but it also drew in a night visitor in the shape of a stunning young Badger. You can watch our new LIVE Feeder Cam 24/7 either on our website HERE or on our Birds of Poole Harbour YouTube channel HERE.

Wood Pigeon Migration high over Poole Harbour this AM

Goldfinch madness on new Feeder cam

Early evening visit by Badger on Feeder Cam

It’s always a good day when a Poole Harbour 1st is found (especially one from North America), and thats exactly what happened this morning when Mark Wright found a Spotted Sandpiper in Bramble Bush Bay. This has been on the Poole Harbour radar for a while, but locating one was always going to be the challenge seeing as one could appear literally any where. Thankfully Mark was in the right place at the right time to grab some photos which helped enable the identification. Todays bird was a juvenile, moulting into winter plumage meaning it didn’t have the ‘spotting’ of a breeding adult, and therefore looked essentially like our more familiar Common Sandpiper. Thankfully Mark’s photos were so good that all the key features were there in plain site, allowing for a swift ID. The main key features are how short-tailed they are compared to Common Sand, plus Spotted Sandpiper often have much brighter yellow legs. The supercilium is also very pronounced and the bill is an off yellow, pinky colour and slightly thicker set plus they plain edged tertials . The clincher is when they fly, the wing bar is much reduced compared to Common Sand, which is highlighted in Mark’s great picture below. The time of year is also a good clue, because (nearly) all our Common Sandpipers have migrated to Africa by now, although during most winters we see at least 1 over-wintering Common Sandpiper which always get scrutinised for this very reason! It was great that the bird hung around in the same spot all day meaning everyone got great views of it as it fed happily with Dunlin and Turnstone.

Elsewhere the first movement of Wood Pigeon got going with c2000 over the harbour during the course of the morning. The large Cormorant flock thats currently touring the harbour were split into four flocks with c320 in a fishing flock by the houseboats at Bramble bush Bay, c240 fishing off Russell Quay, 250 roosting on Shag Looe, and 60 roosting on Brownsea lagoon. The Brownsea lagoon returned some decent totals with 30 Greenshank, 120 Redshank, 1140 Black-tailed Godwit, 5      Bar-tailed Godwit, 398 Dunlin, 22 Ringed Plover, 20 Grey Plover, 8 Grey Herons, 242 Avocet, 1 Rock Pipit, 1 Kingfisher and 120 Wigeon. There were 2 Red-throated Diver, one in North Channel and one off the north shore of Brownsea. Plus there were 2 Great Northern Diver with one in the North Channel and the other off Green Island, plus here were 8 Great Crested Grebe in Brands Bay and 35 Red-breasted Merganser were off Furzey. The Wareham flood meadows between Swineham and Bestwall were awash with water but there was only 1 Spotted Redshank, 5 – 6 Bearded Tit off Swineham point, two Fieldfare flocks over and 1 Grey Wagtail at Wareham Quay. At RSPB Arne, 24 Spoonbill were on Shipstal and ringtail Hen Harriers were seen in Lytchett Bay and at Swineham. The Common Scoter was also in Lytchett Bay again and a White-tailed Eagle was soaring high over the north of the harbour, viewed from the Wareham Channel area.

Spotted Sandpiper – Bramble Bush Bay 

Spotted Sandpiper – Bramble bush Bay – Mark Wright

Spotted Sandpiper in flight showing restricted wing bar – Bramble bush Bay – Mark Wright

In some instances you tend to find the good birds during the bad weather, but then sometimes, you often have to wait for the dust to settle for the decent stuff to appear, and thats exactly what seemed to happen today with a definite arrival of birds across the harbour of all shapes and sizes. The undoubted highlight was when a Great Grey Shrike appeared in a bush at Lytchett Fields, right next to a net where Stour Ringing Group were attempting to catch Water Pipit as part of a national study. Not only did the shrike appear next to the net, it also then had the decency to fly down straight into the net, where it was caught and then processed by the team. This was the first record of Great Grey Shrike for Lytchett Bay and the first ever to be ringed in Poole Harbour. Plus, this wasn’t quite what the team were expecting after near hurricane force winds from the west over the last 24 hours considering this is a species from central and north eastern Europe! Oh yeah, and they did catch a Water Pipit too. The excitement wasn’t just limited to Lytchett Bay with a Bittern seen flying over the reeds at Swineham Point as it then got harassed by a Marsh Harrier of which there were 8+ present in the same area. Also at Swineham Point 20+ Bearded Tit were being incredibly vocal, and sounding like they wanted leave/depart imminently. We think the strangest sighting of the day went to a Black-necked Grebe that was feeding quite happily out in the middle of the flooded fields at Bestwall (west of Swineham). We’re obviously more familiar with seeing these out towards the harbour mouth, with 1 off Jerry’s Point this morning and another in Studland Bay, but out in the middle of some farm fields is a new one for us! On Swineham GP there were 2 drake Pochard and on Arne Moors 5 Spotted Redshank and 5 Greenshank. At Shipstal 2 Great White Egret flew over and 3 were seen in Middlebere where there was also a ringtail Hen Harrier. Female White-tailed Eagle G466 was sat on the post on the smallest gull island around 10am and out in central harbour there were 3 Eider (2 imm male and a female). The first Great Northern Divers of the winter were seen at several sites with 1 in the Wareham Channel, 1 in central harbour and another off Jerry’s Point and the first Goldeneye of the winter arrived with a female also off Jerry’s Point. There seemed to be a lot of newly arrived common wildfowl around, and with the river valleys so flooded it’s no surprise as they plenty of places to choose to feed. At Bestwall alone there was a single flock of 74 Shoveler, plus multiple other smaller groups moving up and down the Frome Valley between Swineham Point and Bestwall, as well as slightly smaller numbers of Pintail, Gadwall, Teal and Wigeon. There were also 16 Knot roosting on Shipstal Beach and a minimum of 5 Sandwich Tern flying around the harbour. It’s now getting to the point where any Chiffchaff that are  present are likely to be over-wintering individuals rather than late migrants, however 1 was in full song at Carey Secret Garden this afternoon, which you don’t quite expect in early November. This afternoon a redhead Goosander was also on the floods at Bestwall, and over on Keysworth (viewed from Slepe Heath) there were 14 Cattle Egret and a ringtail Hen Harrier with 2 Great White Egret also there and both White-tailed Eagles out on Shag Looe Spit.

Great Grey Shrike when it appeared in bush next to ringing net (note net pole to the right) – Lytchett Fields – Shaun Robson

Great Grey Shrike after being ringed and processed – Lytchett Fields – Phil Saunders

Thankfully the local impacts of last nights storm didn’t seem too bad, with just some minor flooding on the roads and a couple of downed trees. Hopefully everyone stayed safe and well. On the birding front, the impacts of the storm were equally uneventful locally with high anticipation and expectation for this mornings sea watch, only for it to not produce very much! Weirdly when we headed out at 6:30am there wasn’t a breath of wind, so the best we could muster from Branksome Chine was 1 drake Eider, 1 Great Northern Diver, 6 dark-bellied Brent Geese, 1 1st winter Kittiwake, 8 Sanderling and 1 Turnstone all west, with c30 Gannet heading both east and west. At the harbour entrance 2 small diver sp entered the harbour, almost certainly Red-throated Diver and a Razorbill was in Shell Bay. However, later in the day another vigil at Branksome did produce a few decent birds including a European Storm Petrel and then 2 distatnt petrel species, also 110 Black-tailed Godwit, 5 Common Scoter and a Merlin flew across Poole Bay. The storm did produce the goods for one area though, and that was Lytchett Bay as it hosted it’s first Common Scoter in 30 years, with a juv/female type present at dawn. Elsewhere there were 12 Cattle Egret in the Frome Valley at the Wareham – Stoborough causeway. Then, late this afternoon an incredibly late Hobby was over Arne Moors.

Common Scoter – Lytcehtt Bay – Ian Ballam

It’s always promising when the first (unofficial) day of winter starts with a raging storm. So while we sit and wait to see what Storm Ciaran blows in tomorrow, here’s todays limited highlights. A sea watch at South Beach, Studland produced 16 Kittiwake and this morning 2 diver flew into the harbour, 1 definitely a Red-throated Diver and the other unidentified. There were 12 Spoonbill at RSPB Arne, 4 Marsh Harrier at Swineham and 7 Red-breasted Merganser off Hamworty Beach. Talking of which………

A fairly wet Halloween this year but still plenty of good birds around. 1 male Ring Ouzel was still at Godlingston Hill. Lots of sightings of White-tailed Eagle as well with 1 being seen first thing in the morning at Lytchett Heath along with 2 Marsh Harrier and then the pair later on at Middlebere.

The high tides in the harbour are continuing and with plenty of floodwater a lot of waders are being pushed out of some of their usual sites. Holes Bay had very few Black-tailed Godwit but there were 714 Wigeon, 40 Dunlin and 3 Common Snipe and at Middle Beach, Studland, 3 Razorbills were out at sea. The high tide in the Middlebere Channel produced 2 Great White Egret, 1 Spotted Redshank, 4 Grey Plover, 1550 Black-tailed Godwit, 350 Avocet, 1 Pintail and 7 Red-breasted Merganser. 1 Cattle Egret was still present at Holmebridge amongst several Little Egret.

Finally the Brownsea Lagoon had some very impressive counts of waders including 3 Curlew Sandpiper, 1420 Dunlin, 5 Sanderling, 28 Knot, 620 Avocet, 4 Spotted Redshank, 18 Greenshank, 2470 Black-tailed Godwit, 39 Bar-tailed Godwit and 25 Spoonbill.

Curlew Sandpiper – Brownsea Lagoon – Hamish Murray