There’s so many great raptors around at the moment and in good numbers too. This increase of birds of prey (both breeding and over-wintering) is a real asset to the current status of the harbour. Having good numbers of top down predators in a landscape indicates the quality of a dynamic and complex eco-system, where there’s plenty of food and habitat available to cater for our growing raptor population. There’s no denying that some of these birds of prey will be feeding on other important species (for example, a few years ago the Arne Kestrels fed on a mixed diet of Lapwing chicks and Sand Lizards), but that doesn’t mean we need to frown upon Kestrels, it means that Poole Harbours eco-system is thriving and developing. And long may it continue!

Today, once again there was a  4 Marsh Harrier, 1 White-tailed Eagle, 1 Hen Harrier, 1 Peregrine and 2 Kestrel around the Wareham Channel, a Goshawk at an undisclosed site and 3 Merlin around Hartland and 2 Peregrine around Lytchett Bay and Arne. On the Brownesea Lagoon today there were 54 Spoonbill, 1 Cattle Egret, 1 Curlew Sandpiper and 1 Spotted Redshank. There were also 8 Spotted Redshank from the Middlebere hide and at Lytchett Fields 2 Curlew Sandpiper and 1 Spotted Redshank. There were huge numbers of geese at Swineham with massive numbers of Canada Geese and smaller flocks of Greylag Geese, but in amongst them were 1 Barnacle Goose and 7 Egyptian Geese, but surely there’s a good chance of them attracting in some scarcer goose species? The roving sinensis Cormorant flock was out in force again with c500 between Brownsea and Holes Bay. There were more Black Redstart on the menu with 1 along the Middlebere track and 2 on the Arne farm roof buildings. There were 949 Wigeon in Holes Bay and Fieldfare and Redwing were once again passing over in small numbers for most of the day.

Goshawk – Undisclosed site – Mark Wright 

Black Redstart – Middlebere – Mark Wright 

Firstly, we’d like to give our sincere apologies for not being able to update our sightings page over the last 2 weeks. We recently upgraded our server and in doing so ‘a glitch’ occurred preventing us from accessing our sightings page to be able to update it each day. We’ve now finally got to the bottom of the issue (for now), and still have a couple bugs to sort out, but at least we can now access the site and do all the updates needed to get us going again!!

Right…back to the birds. It’s a real raptor-fest at the moment with good numbers of birds of prey around. Several watches around the south of the harbour today resulted in 4 Merlin (1 on off the sea at Middle Beach, 1 over Godlingston, 1 on Arne Moors and 1 on Hartland), 1 Goshawk over Godlingston, 4 Marsh Harrier at Swineham, 2 Hen Harrier around Swineham and Middlebere, 1 Red Kite over the Wareham Channel and 1 White-tailed Eagle over Hydes Heath, Arne. Add in the Common Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, Kestrels and (not-logged today) Peregrines, then there’s a great mix of raptors to connect with currently. A sea watch off Branksome chine produced 1 Black-throated Diver, 2 Common Scoter, 4 Sandwich Tern, 5+ Kittiwake, 10+ Gannet and 20+ auk sp (mainly Razorbill). From the Studland Road viewpoint a Swallow headed SW and there was a slow, but steady passage of Linnet, Siskin, Skylark and Pied Wagtail going on above the harbour for most of the day. There were 5 different Black Redstart around with 2 on the Knoll Beach cafe roof with 2 more on the NT office roofs in the Ulwell Gap, plus 1 more on the Shell Bay ferry toll buildings. A whopping 708 sinensis Cormorant were counted on Brownsea before they all headed off, out to feed in the harbour. At Lytchett Fields there were 2 Curlew Sandpiper, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Ruff and 2 Green Sandpiper. Finally, on Brownsea there were 54 Spoonbill and a single Black-necked Grebe was off Jerry’s Point.

Greenshank – Brownsea Lagoon – Martin Adams

Late news of a Glossy Ibis around Middlebere at 10:20 – Rob Morrison