Birding in Dorset & Poole Harbour Area: June to December 2016

The following is the last of the highlight up dates of my patch birding and lifers

June

No doubt about it the outstanding highlight of this month for me was see the Great Spotted Cuckoo in Reap Lane at Portland.

My 1st Great Spotted Cuckoo

July

This months highlight was finding a Hobby at Longham Lakes, it was a sight to watch as he went after the Martins and at one point made a dash at one of the Swifts. Such awesome speed and agility these birds have, the shot below is of a Hobby I took on one of the local heaths last year.

Hobby

August

There can only be one highlight for August my very first Curlew Sandpipers, last year I looked and looked through all the Dunlin hoping to find one at Lytchett Fields. So when I heard that some had turned up, I went off in search of them but did not expect to find six of them on the small pool just before the view point. These are wonderful birds looking elegant among the Dunlin.


My 1st Curlew Sandpipers

September

This month saw me tick off two new lifers at each of my sites the first was on the 4th with my 1st Little Gull hawking over the South lake at Longham Lakes at smart immature bird just floating about with ease and gracefully. Then my second later on in the month resting on the water in a very stiff breeze. I watched for a while as the bird got pushed close to the bank of the north west corner. Then take off and fly towards the island it did this several times while I watched such a small and beautiful gull.
Then next lifer was on the 18th, on this day I had a call from a friend to say that a Lesser Yellowlegs was down on Lytchett Fields and would I like a lift as he was going down. Of course I said yes as I had never seen a Lesser Yellowlegs. When we got down the the light was not very good with the sun shining in front making the viewing difficult, but there were a few people there that helped point us in the right direction. Even with the directions I was still having trouble locating the bird until Terry Elborn pointed the bird but I still did not see it until it moved out of the group of Redshanks and Black-tailed Godwits and I could pick up it long yellow legs. Since then I have found it myself and it is a very smart looking bird.

Poor record of my 1st/2nd Little Gull

October/November

Well what can be said about these two months they were bloody hard on the patches with several visits to the sites it was hard to come up with new birds though I did have a couple which I should of ticked earlier in the year these being a Bullfinch -18th November and a site first for me with a Great White Egret on the 29th November at Longham Lakes. At Lytchett I only recorded a Firecrest and a Coal Tit on the 18th October. With 8 birding days in October and with 5 days in November, that was the extent of my birding in these two months.


Phone scoped Great White Egret & Little Egret

December

Surprisingly this as been a very good month with some nice birding days had and some site firsts and a couple of lifers to boot.
It as been great to be able to get very close views of the 3 long staying Great White Egrets ( hope they are still there on the 1st) The first site 1st for me and it was a site 1st was a Little Stint, which made a bit of a stir when it first appeared as at first one thought was it a possible White -rumped Sandpiper, the next thought was it a possible Red-necked Stint, but after a number of local birders went to see the bird the consensus was a Little Stint. Having never seen any of those bird mentioned above I would not know anyway, but the bird to me looked like a Little Stint. I did get a good look through scope one when it was next to a pied wagtail it was a very small bird as it was not much bigger than this species. I tried to get a picture but as the bird was really tiny and at a distance they did not come out very well, in the picture below you can just about make out the bird at the base of the Cormorant.

A very bad record shot of a 1st site Little Stint

Next lifer and another site for me was on the 2nd after seeing the Stint on the 1st with three Water Rail which was also a sight first. The was my first Jack Snipe which is a lovely little snipe it was very nice to watch it feeding along the shore line bobbing nervously up and down as it feed. Just as I thought wow my 1st Jack Snipe another four appeared out of the reed stems on the shore line.

My 1st Jack Snipe

But the patch at Longham was not finished yet and by the 29th I had two new more site first with a Redshank and a fly over of two Raven. I will finish the year with 95 species seen at Longham as I can not see me back there before the 1st of January 2017 were I will be out starting all over again with the hope of achieving the 100 mark.

I had not finished with Lytchett though as reports kept coming in on the long stay Lesser Yellowlegs and a Green-winged Teal. So off I went to look for the G W Teal as this would be a new lifer for me, having spent most of the afternoon of the 26th looking through approximately c200 Teal the Green -winged eluded me.Though I did have a very pleasant afternoon watching all the Dunlin, Lapwings, Teal and a nice Spotted Redshank.

Spotted Redshank

As I did not see the Green -winged Teal on the 26th afternoon seeing news on Twitter that the bird was showing well I headed off down there again on the 27th it took me a little while but I eventually found the bird over on the far pools viewing from the new viewing mound at the Sherford view point.

After this I went to look over French's Pool for the Lesser Yellowlegs which was way over at the back of the field.

Record Shot of my 1st Green-winged Teal

I followed this up with a look over Black Piper bay were I meet up with another Patch Watcher and local birder Shaun Robson, While here I had another site first with some Brent Geese and some Common Gulls which were at a distance and Shaun helped me identify them giving some great points on gull species which I will put to good use looking for my first Ring-billed Gull next year.

The Lesser Yellowlegs came over from the fields and I had some good view though at a distance which was great for IDing the jizz of the bird as it feed and to see it feeding with Redshanks which showed how slender looking and neater bird over all compared to the Redshank.

I have end up with seeing a 119 species this year at Lytchett Fields and there was some very special bird seen at this site which alone this as given me 6 new birds and Dorset first for me with Little Ringed Plover as the first on I saw was at Blashford Lakes in Hampshire.

So that is the end of this blog for 2016, not sure I will keep it going in 2017?

2016 was a good birding year for me so I must thank everyone I have meet and helped me this year in one way or another with get to see the birds and helping with some identification point THANK YOU All and hope you have a bird filled New Year.

Here are some pictures I took along the way and more of the long staying Egrets.