A day on Brownsea Island

We joined a Dorset Wildlife Trust members day to Brownsea Island yesterday (Sunday 31st January).  While waiting to board the boat over to the island a Common Guillemot swam by the quay, Nick wanting to get a photo followed it and realised how quickly they can swim, but he did get a shot.

Common Guillemot - Poole Quay © Nick Hull

The boat first went round part of the harbour before landing on the island, as we past fisherman's quay Nick spotted a Sinesis Cormorant and on the way back with camera ready he managed to get a good photo.  We were soon finding many Red-breasted Mergansers, much harder to spot were Goldeneye.   Several Great Crested Grebes dotted about and a few Black-necked Grebes, I picked up a distant Great Northern Diver and a second just before we came into land on the island.  The Shags were showing their beautiful crest and looked very smart, however no sign of the Black Guillemot.

Once on the island we had a quick look over the lagoon before taking walk up from the church up to look over the harbour towards Sandbanks for another look for the Black Guille, again with no luck.  On our walk we heard Raven "cronking" and then we watched it carrying a stick presumably to add to its nest.  In the woods we had the usual species including Song Thrush, Blackbird, Robin and Great Spotted Woodpecker, though we only heard the Green Woodpecker.  We watched a Treecreeper busy searching for insects ignoring us completely as did a Coal Tit foraging on a rotting log.   A Mistle Thrush started singing and we could hear Siskins, a flock of Long-tailed Tits trickled through with their constant contact calls.

Treecreeper - Brownsea Island © Nick Hull

Going back down to the Villa for our lunch sitting out by the feeders with the usual chickens keeping us company, while on the feeders we had Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Chaffinch.  We had already seen Red Squirrels but one very confiding individual came on the feeder just a few feet from us.  Obviously this squirrel decided we may have something better and came up on to the picnic table, I thought he was going to pinch my sandwich!

Red Squirrel - Brownsea Villa © Nick Hull

Looking over the lagoon from the Macdonald hide we could see a huddle of waders on a sandbar, a mix of Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwits and Dunlin, though they were soon up into the air.  So scanning the sky I found the culprit, a Peregrine!  It landed by the sea wall and the waders seemed happy with that and soon settled back down.  Another look round picked up Turnstone, Grey Heron and Pintail.  

Greenshank - Brownsea Lagoon © Nick Hull

We decided to move on to the next hide and en-route we watched a Common Buzzard over the wood.  From the hide we had several Greenshanks and a couple of Spotted Redshank and just tucked into the reeds were a few Snipe.   There were a very large number of Shoveler on the lagoon, other wildfowl included Teal, Wigeon and Gadwall.  Now time to go back to the quay for the boat home as we passed the boardwalk we had a very smart female Grey Wagtail.  While we waited to leave we had lovely views of Great Northern Diver.