Portland & Radipole RSPB - Sat 13 Apr

A morning out today and another trip down south to Portland, this time with a few birding mates. We arrived at Portland at 7.00am and after a brief and unsuccessful look at Barleycrates Lane made straight for the Bill. The next hour or so was a series of near misses. I managed to miss both Puffin and Whimbrel during the seawatch and on the land we all failed to see the Long-eared Owl which had been present all winter.
On the plus side, I did connect with Little Owl and the birds I managed to see out to sea included my first Fulmar and Kittiwake of the year. A small flock of five Common Scoter flew west and a Merlin flew in-off the sea and headed north up West Cliffs.
As the weather took a turn for the worse we left the Bill and stopped briefly at Pennsylvania Castle, but it was a waste of time. So it was off to Weymouth and we made straight for Lodmoor. Parking at Lodmoor I checked my pager...Iceland Gull at Radipole, so a rapid three-point turn and we were heading back in to the centre of Weymouth.
Five minutes later and we were parked in the Swannery Car Park only to be told the Iceland Gull had flown five minutes earlier, if only we had stopped here en route to Lodmoor, we would've seen the bird! We hung around at Radipole for nearly an hour. Lots of Swallows and Sand Martins were present and we managed some fairly good views of at least two Bearded Tits, oh yes, the resident Hooded Merganser was seen too.

 

As the rain started to fall again we called an end to a rather unsuccessful morning with regard to birds, but good company was a consolation!