New life on Brownsea

A few weeks ago a family trip to the tern colony on Brownsea Island was rudely interrupted by news of an Elegant Tern at a tern colony in Pagham Harbour. One of the reasons I had agreed to visit Brownsea was a secret hope that the Tern might appear there and that I would be the one to find it. Fast forward a couple of weeks and the Elegant Tern was indeed discovered at the Brownsea tern colony - not by me as I was in London on business, but by my former colleague Hamish Murray, doing his rounds for his new employer, the Dorset Wildlife Trust.

Sandwich Tern: a demanding youngster

This one was stood a couple of yards from where the Elegant Tern roosted on webcam

Sandwich Tern chick - this was taken 10 days ago so this bird will probably now be unrecognisable

Black-headed Gull chicks were on the islands and swimming on the lagoon

I don't think I have ever seen so many Common Tern chicks on Brownsea - there are 30 in this photo alone

Despite roosting overnight and being widely watched on the Brownsea webcam the Elegant Tern was only present in the colony for the first hours of daylight the following morning. I made a couple of visits to the island over the following days - it was a very long shot that the Tern might drop in again (and indeed it didn't) but I knew there would be plenty to see and photograph in any case.

The breeding terns can be very feisty - here a Common Tern takes a Little Egret to task

It's not all happy endings though - a Mediterranean Gull making off with a Black-headed Gull chick

That Med Gull again - butter wouldn't melt!

Common Tern bringing food back to the nest

Common Tern

Within the tern colony, both breeding species - Sandwich and Common - seemed to be doing incredibly well. The Sandwich Terns appear to have benefitted from fencing erected around their favoured islands preventing trampling by Sika Deer. The Common Terns prefer unfenced islands and they are also doing well - possibly because the pair of Yellow-legged Gulls which have bred in several recent years, and which plunder the tern chicks for their own offspring, don't appear to have nested this year.

The Terns were bringing a variety of food back to the nest - sandeels...

...Pipefish...

...and other small fish

Sandwich Tern

Refreshing to see so much new life doing well on the Island - and a great place for photographing the terns going about their business.

Sandwich Tern calling on approach to the colony

Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern with a handsome catch

Man about town

Urban birding has become something of a habit lately, and we are fortunate in Dorset to have a number of good options in this regard. Last weekend saw me pottering around a few more of the county's birding hotspots between Portland and Dorchester. First stop was Fortuneswell and Chesil Cove at the southern end of Chesil Beach, where a pair of Black Redstarts were flitting on the rocks - same time, same place as a pair last year. A trio of Eider Duck were the highlight of a quick scan of Portland Harbour before lunch with the ducks and gulls at Radipole Lake in Weymouth. There was just time to twitch a first winter male Rose-Coloured Starling on the rooftops of suburban Dorchester before heading back to Purbeck to see about 10,000 of its more familiar cousin, the Common Starling, come in to a spectacular roost at Studland's South Haven.

Male Black Redstart, Chesil Cove

Black Redstart, Chesil Cove

Female Black Redstart, Chesil Cove

Rock Pipit, Chesil Cove

Meadow Pipit, Ferrybridge

Eiders in Portland Harbour

Bearded Tit, Radipole Lake

Blackbird, Radipole Lake

Carrion Crow, Chesil Cove

Dunnock, Radipole Lake

Shelduck, Radipole Lake

Black-headed Gull, Radipole Lake

Common Gull, Radipole Lake

Mediterranean Gull, Radipole Lake

Med Gull with Black-headed Gull above

The drake Hooded Merganser still displaying at Radipole

Always a show-off



Male Marsh Harrier at Radipole

Moorhen, Radipole Lake

Feral Pigeon, Radiploe Lake

Rose-coloured Starling, Dorchester

Not looking so good after a bath

Starling murmuration at Studland

Suffering for your art

The first day of 2017, normally a red letter day in the birding calendar, was a bit of a washout with heavy rain causing me to abort a planned afternoon visit to Swineham. Well it's the 'post-truth' era so much easier to conclude it would be birdless from the comfort of the armchair than to actually go there and prove it. So here are a few pictures from before and after that from two of Dorset's urban birding hotspots - Lyme Regis, which I visited to see my godsons last Friday, and the built up north shore of Poole Harbour, around which I strolled with the family yesterday. The sun shone mightily at both, and photographs were the inevitable result.

Purple Sandpipers often roost on The Cobb at Lyme Regis but they are either distant there or right underneath you making photography difficult - but it was low tide so I caught up with a flock on a rocky shelf at the beach 

The snag was they were feeding on a ledge surrounded by six inches of water and I was only wearing my 'about-town' shoes. So off they came enabling me to wade through the freezing water, lacerating my feet on the barnacled rocks. Well you have to suffer for your art...

Not often you get to see the beautiful purple iridescence on a Purple Sandpiper - but it can be seen on this one (click to enlarge)

A careful approach allowed me to get pretty close

A pair of Dipper were in the Mill stream which runs through the heart of town

A curtsying courtship display with a flash of the white eyelid

One of very few locations in Dorset where Dipper can be seen

Grey Wagtail also frequent the same stream

A misty Golden Cap from Lyme Regis beach

Mediterranean Gulls were also on the beach at Lyme Regis

No longer a rare sight on the Dorset coast

Ethereal sunset looking west from Chideock - we could see the reflection but not the sun itself

Black-tailed Godwits were present in large numbers at Upton Country Park yesterday - the first sunny day of 2017

Also a large Dunlin flock out in Holes Bay

Mixed flock of Dunlin and Blackwits against the backdrop of urban Poole

A good selection of wintering duck were in the bay including this smart drake Pintail

Blue Tit in the woodland at Upton CP

Finally from Upton a backlit male Stonechat

Earlier in the day saw me on the groynes at Sandbanks where a patient approach allowed me to get close to another favourite wader: Sanderling

Sanderling at Sandbanks

The roosting birds tolerated my careful approach and a less careful approach from a couple of dogs, but ultimately a jetski put them to flight - unfortunately an occupational hazard for the Sandbanks Sanderlings