TwO Owls Blog: December end of the Year

We hope everyone had a very happy and festive Christmas and we would like to wish you all a very successful wildlife filled New Year.

Well, December started as November finished I popped back to Studland to see if I could get a shot of the Surf Scoter but alas it was too distant even to get any sort of passable shot of it. The only consolation was whilst watching the scoter I managed to tick off Ringed-necked Parakeet calling near Fort Henry.

The rest of the month we visited Arne, Middlebere then a visit back to Studland on the 10th Dec where saw 6 Great Northern Diver, Marsh Harrier, Goldeneye and Mergansers but no Long-tailed Duck which we learnt later was seen off the birdboat near to Green Island. On the way home we went via Hartland Moor Stud Farm and found the Fieldfare and Redwing were still in the field opposite the Stud, our first sighting of winter.

Our next trip was to Pennington, we were meeting friends for a walk and a Christmas dinner after and it so happened that there was a Long-tailed Duck on Fishtail Lagoon. Parking at the end of Pennington Lane we headed to the lagoon which was full of wildfowl. We scanned with scopes from the top of the old landfill but couldn't find it, but once we were down on the edge of the lagoon Jackie picked it up about 100m away so we approached closer and watched it for some time. It was a typical 1st/winter individual and it performed extremely well.

1st/winter Long-tailed Duck Fishtail Lagoon Pennington © Nick Hull

With Christmas not far away mainly it was domestic duties through to 30th. After surviving everything Christmas could throw at us on the 30th our interest was piqued with a post on the Dorset Bird Club FB page from John Pick with very nice photograph of a Snow Bunting he found on Hamworthy Park Beach. As it was dark I let local birders know that evening and Jackie and I went after breakfast in the morning. When we arrived there were around six local birders present and we were told it had been flushed by a dog and it had pitched down by one of the beach groynes which was almost in front of us and yes, there it was. What a great last year tick for 2024. The great thing about Snow Bunting is they are a high Arctic breeding species like Purple Sandpiper and Turnstone and probably has never seen a human before so have no real fear of us which makes them quite confiding, though they do react to dogs which I believe is a predatory reaction as if it was an Arctic Fox.

Snow Bunting- Hamworthy Park ©Nick Hull

Though throughout the year Jackie and I saw some fantastic birds with Goshawk, Red-breasted Goose and Baikal Teal in February; Forster's Tern, Purbeck Cirl Bunting and Bonaparte's Gull April; Red-backed Shrike in September on Patch; and Red-flanked Bluetail, Radde's Warbler, Pallas's Warbler in October; Red-eyed Vireo and Surf Scoter in November with Long-tailed Duck and Snow Bunting in December. Our year finished on 195 species which is the first time we haven't hit 200+ in some 20+ years.

Comparison between 2023 & 2024 results

2023

UK 213 species

Lytchett Bay Patch 123 species

Poole Harbour 157 species

Isle of Purbeck 160 species

Dorset 178 species

2024

UK 195 species

Lytchett Bay 115 species

Poole Harbour 156 species

Isle of Purbeck 160 species