About Two Owls

Sunday 13 April 2014

Lytchett Bay and Swineham

Started this morning nice and early checking the moth trap only eighteen moths of just nine species. Though the thing about having a new garden is for a while you get garden firsts and as last year was so cold and wet I didn't get started until later in the season, so I'm finding a few 'new for the garden' species. This morning included Herald, Nut-tree Tussock and Luna Marbled Brown.  I also caught two Clouded Drab one was at the pale end and the other the dark end of the colour spectrum they almost look like different species.

Lunar Marbled Brown
Both ends of the colour phases of Clouded Drab
A walk around the western end of the patch this morning added just four migrants species Wheatear, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Swallow so very little migrant movement away from the coastal strip though not that much better.  Perhaps too clear a night and the birds went over then taking a break further inland.

After doing family stuff this afternoon we had just arrived home when Jackie received a tweet and checked our local birding forum.  Paul Morton had found two Black-winged Stilt on the meadows next to the Frome near Ridge.  A quick call to Liz to see if she wanted to join us, which she did and we headed off.  Parking at Bestwall we walked towards Swineham Point, past the Curlews then climbed the bank, where they have felled the pines, and viewed across the meadows.  In the pool left of the Ridge Yacht Club  we could see a couple of Shelduck then a single female type Black-winged Stilt and a little further to the left the scope fell on a male. This was a Poole Harbour first for Jackie and I and looking back in the records there has only been two previous sighting in the Poole Harbour area the first in 1960 at the old Wareham Sewage works. Another record of an immature 3rd August - 6th September was from Brownsea Island lagoon on 7th June 1978 but this seems to not have been submitted or rejected by BBRC as it doesn't appear in the Birds of Dorset. The first recorded record for Dorset was at Lodmoor which was shot in 1837.  

A Fantastic finish to the day but I've just heard that there has been 10 found today on the Isle of Wight. Wow!  

Thanks to http://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk and Paul Morton for allowing us to use his photograph of this lovely pair of waders.

Black-winged Stilts - Wareham Meadows - © Paul Morton @harbourbirds


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