South Dorset - Mon 2 Jan

A day out with friends today and after packing my passport we headed off to south Dorset, spending the day at Abbotsbury, Weymouth and Portland.
Our first port of call was in Dorchester where after a bit of a search we found the first-winter Rose-coloured Starling, a rather smart looking bird with the beginnings of it's colourful plumage starting to come through, but not wishing to hang around a housing estate in the early morning with binoculars we didn't linger too long and headed off to Abbotsbury.
A quick stop on the road overlooking the Swannery produced distant 'scope views of two Long-tailed Ducks and a few commoner wildfowl, but we failed to find any Scaup so headed off to Portland Harbour.
Starting at Sandsfoot before long we had added Goosander (a flock of twelve redheads), Eider (a first-winter male) and a single Razorbill. With not much else of note out in the harbour from this side we then stopped at Ferrybridge for a quick look and counted a total of twenty-eight Mediterranean Gulls.

Twenty-three Dark-bellied Brent Geese. A single Rock Pipit and three Turnstone were also present.
We then made a quick stop at Portland Castle, but could only find a single Great Northern Diver so headed on to Portland Bill.
The Little Owl eventually popped out to saw hello in the Observatory Quarry whilst a brief sea-watch produced two Brent Geese, five Oystercatcher, five Mediterranean Gulls, a Fulmer and hundreds of auks. As we returned to the car news broke of a Black-necked Grebe in Portland harbour, so we set off but failed to find it. The first-winter drake Eider did turn up and showed rather well.

We then decided to take a wander around Radipole RSPB. To be honest, it was pretty dire! We did see a single Bearded Tit flying across the reeds and heard a few others. A single Cetti's Warbler was heard calling and a male Marsh Harrier was seen. Another two Mediterranean Gulls were noted and the long-staying Hooded Merganser was added to the list but I left Radipole thinking that it is not really the site it used to be.
We decided to end the say back at Abbotsbury looking for the two wintering Richard's Pipits which had been reported earlier in the afternoon, but despite searching we drew a blank. That being said it was a great day out with friends and I clocked up a total of seventy-one species.