Fields of Dreams

When I moved to Dorset in 2007 there was a friendly rivalry between the regular birders at Swineham, including myself, and those at Lytchett Bay, which is a few miles clockwise around Poole Harbour. Both sites had turned up some good species over the years, but both also had a reputation as being a bit 'hard work', not necessarily rewarding assiduous patch watchers as they might. 

Some years back, a breach in the sea wall at Lytchett changed all that, allowing the area now known as Lytchett Fields to flood on every tide, driving a transition to saltmarsh and the muddy habitats beloved of wading birds. As a result, it has developed a justified reputation as *swallows hard* one of the best wetland sites in Dorset.

At the same time, unsympathetic management prevailed at Swineham such that it became very much the poor relation, certainly since 2012/13 when a very wet period brought an unusually good selection of waders to the flooded meadows near the gravel pits. Swineham enjoyed another brief renaissance last year following construction of two new scrapes, when regular lockdown visits by yours truly and others turned up a Temminck's Stint, Pec Sand (x2), Marsh Warbler and Grey Phalarope to give Lytchett a run for its money for once. 

But the magnetic effect of the new scrapes seems to have worn off this year, and despite even more regular visits on my part, the site hasn't turned up anything rarer than a pair of relocating Ring-necked Duck at the back end of winter.

So with Swineham not delivering, and several waders still on my target list for the 2021 non-motorised year list, I guessed there would be a point this year where I would have to put petty rivalries aside and head for the Lytchett Fields of Dreams. The moment arrived sooner than expected on Tuesday night with news of a Wood Sandpiper at Lytchett and, rather than risk missing out on a potentially tricky species, I thought I had better strike while the iron was hot. 

The route to Lytchett Fields by bike is now a well trodden one as I have to head past it en route to most points east. It's also pretty flat so I was pleased to find I could complete the 6 miles from home in under half an hour. Unfortunately, for the last five minutes of this half hour it positively shat down with rain and I was drenched by the time I arrived.

Mercifully the storm passed soon after I stopped, enabling me to set up the scope to scan the pools where the Wood Sand had been reported without too much fogging up of the optics. Before long I had located the attractive wader which eventually made its way from the back of the pool to the front. The sun had come out by this time improving the prospects for photography as well as drying my clothes out surprisingly quickly. 

A Ruff, a Little Stint or a Curlew Sand would have been nice - all three would have taken the year list to 200 - but it wasn't to be and the Wood Sand brought it to 197. Still, autumn is young and there will be plenty of time to hopefully catch up with them, and I have a feeling I will be back at the Bay again before the year is up.

Meare Heath extras

As well as yesterday's star bird, the Hudsonian Godwit, Meare Heath also produced a few more good species - all seen from the same spot whilst watching the Hudwit.

Hudsonian Godwit

Hudsonian Godwit - 156th species photographed in Britain this year

Bittern

Common Cranes - presumably from the local reintroduction scheme, so 'untickable' for the photo list

This one's OK though: Great White Egret, one of two seen (#157)

First Hobby of the year (#158)

Little Ringed Plover (#159)

Wood Sandpiper (#160)

Personal best

With the family away on a camping trip, I've been free to nip out birding in the evenings after work this week. Unfortunately this rare opportunity has coincided with an even rarer one in the form of the Olympics, and I think I clocked a personal best on the round trip to Swineham gravel pits to get back in time for the evening's TV coverage.

Wood Sandpiper

A Wood Sandpiper present on Tuesday was still there but had been joined by a Little Gull, and a small flock of 13 Black-tailed Godwits grew to over 240 during the next hour of an incoming tide in Poole Harbour. Not bad for a flooded field that shouldn't even be flooded at this time of year.

Little Gull

Earlier in the week I flushed a Kingfisher from a wooden pier on the River Frome so I approached the same spot carefully this evening and - bingo. Usually they see you before you see them but this one cocked it's head at me and allowed me to reel off a few shots before heading down river.

Kingfisher

Bring your waders

Flooded fields at Swineham

 When I wrote this post in April I thought I knew what heavy rain was. That was before the events of early July which saw the winter flood meadows around my local gravel pits at Swineham became summer floods.

Black-tailed Godwits

One flooded field near the pits has looked good for waders for several weeks, but there haven't been any. That all changed last night when over 150 of 5 species turned up - the great majority Black-tailed Godwits, many still in smart summer plumage, but also 7 Snipe and singles of Greenshank and Lapwing.

Snipe

Star of the show though was a single Wood Sandpiper, which showed distantly at first but was feeding actively and eventually came quite close. If the White-rumped Sandpiper present on Brownsea today sticks until Saturday it could be a good wader week in Poole Harbour...

A couple of Common Gulls were also good to see. I could have stayed longer, but for the second time in as many weeks biting insects forced me to retire early having lost several pounds of flesh to their unwelcome attentions.