A day out birding today and I headed down to Portland Harbour. A brief stop en route at Radipole was curtailed as it was still dark so I arranged with some friends to meet at Portland Castle, so off I went.
Arriving at bout 8.00am it was very windy and tipping it down with rain...unfortunately this proved to be the case for the entire duration of my time out. I spent two and a half miserable hours staring out over Portland Harbour. No sign of the Brunnich's Guillemot, but I did manage to see three Black-throated Divers, a couple of Great Northern Divers, the long-staying Black Guillemot, and the more usual fare. The only grebes I managed were single Little Grebes and Great Crested Grebe. A Rock Pipit added a bit of variety as it worked its way along the rocks.
I finally gave up and went back to the car to dry off and warm up. Just as I was getting ready to move on I managed to catch Steve and John whom I was planning on meeting up with earlier. They had stopped off at Ferrybridge so after the usual New Year wishes I set off to Ferrybridge.
The weather had again deteriorated, if that was possible, so I stayed in the car, adding Dunlin and Dark-bellied Brent Goose to the dismal list of birds seen today. That was about it, so off I went with a brief stop at the top end of Radipole where I did manage to see the Glossy Ibis.
On my way out of Weymouth I decided to try and see if the two Common Cranes were around Cheselbourne (they had been seen yesterday). A drive round for half an hour or so produced a covey of Red-legged Partridges and little else of note. So I tried a quick trip to Athelhampton to check the water meadows. No sign of any Common Cranes but I did pick up Wigeon and Little Egret!
And that was it, enough was enough, so back home in time for lunch with a pretty poor year list total!
Year list for 2014 now at 37 species.
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