Sutton Bingham - Sun 27 Jan

An hour on site late morning and a few duck around today with around one hundred and twenty Wigeon at the southern end with a single Teal, a few Mallard and two pairs of Gadwall. Off the Canoe Club there were eight Tufted Duck (four drakes and four ducks), another addition to the path year list. Not much else of note, though a few Common Gulls passed through.

Sutton Bingham year list 2019 now at 61 species.

Sutton Bingham - Fri 25 Jan

A text message from James early afternoon resulted in a mad rush to the reservoir during my lunch break to "twitch" three Pochard that he had found on West Pool. Luckily they were still there when I arrived on site.

I also added Great Black-backed Gull to the year list, with an adult bird on the main reservoir.
A return visit just before dark to check the gull roost produced an adult Yellow-legged Gull amongst the commoner fair.

Sutton Bingham - Thu 24 Jan

An afternoon visit today was not looking that promising until a found a Marsh Tit at the bottom end of the car park, a similar area to one I had seen last year, so that's encouraging. It was extremely obliging, at one stage feeding and calling just six foot above my head. Other than that is was very quiet with around eight Wigeon and two Teal off the Fishing Lodge and a calling Pheasant heard.

Sutton Bingham - Sun 20 Jan

A very brief visit late morning produced a female Siskin in the car park and good numbers of gulls, though not enough time to properly check them out. Two adult Mediterranean Gulls were certainly the pick.
Whilst in the car park I glimpsed a bird fly south low over the reservoir which looked remarkably like a diver, but such a brief view and with trees in way meant a mad dash to the southern end in the hope of relocating whatever it was, but I didn't, so that's that.
Sutton Bingham year list 2019 now at 55 species.

Sutton Bingham - Thu 17 Jan

Although a week has passed since my last proper visit to the patch, I did add Tawny Owl to the patch year list on Monday night. Today though I made an afternoon visit that was looking pretty disappointing as all I could manage was around one hundred and fifty Wigeon from the Fishing Lodge before taking a look around West Pool where it all got rather exciting. As I walked along a chestnut brown bird went up from almost under my feet and what followed was half an hour or so of me trying to pin it down, although I was pretty certain I knew what it was. It was occasionally calling and showed very briefly enabling me to confirm identification and then it popped out in to the open, flew back in to cover and sent out a burst of song, my first patch Cetti's Warbler for at least ten years, a real patch mega! The only other birds of note today were five Snipe and a flock of eighteen Lapwing that flew over.
Sutton Bingham year list 2019 now at 52 species.

Sutton Bingham - Thu 10 Jan

So a few short trips to Sutton Bingham at the start of the year failed to produce much other than a drake Gadwall on Jan 2 and a Peregrine on Jan 4 meaning a rather dismal total of just 42 species by the end of the first week.

A little over an hour on patch this afternoon though but again it was hard going. A single Snipe was flushed from the water's edge near the Canoe Club and other than that it was routine fair. So I made for the southern end and a wander around Cotton Bridge. A total of twenty more Snipe were seen plus a pair of Gadwall, a single Wigeon and around twenty Teal. However, star bird without a doubt was a Woodcock that had obviously been disturbed by something and flew straight towards me and over my head before I lost it in the trees. Awesome! Only my third Sutton Bingham Woodcock and the best views I've ever had at the reservoir.
Sutton Bingham year list 2019 now at 49 species.

Sherborne Sewage Works - Mon 7 Jan

Not usually worthy of a separate blog posting my Sherborne patch does occasionally produce something interesting and today I found a Yellow-browed Warbler at the sewage works, even managed to get a few ropey hand-held digi-binned record shots.

My first Yellow-browed Warbler for Sherborne and a welcome addition.

Abbotsbury and Weymouth - Sun 6 Jan

Some proper birding today as I was picked up at 7.10am and driven down to Abbotsbury where we met up with friends and had a great day of birding with good company.
Abbotsbury Swannery produced a flock of around thirty Cattle Egrets leaving their roost at around 8.20am and on the Fleet we picked out a drake Scaup amongst Pochard and Tufted Duck. No sign of the long-staying Whooper Swan though unfortunately.
After a while we headed towards Weymouth, stopping at Chickerell where we walked down to East Fleet Farm and, after hearing it call on and off for about half an hour, finally got views (albeit brief) of a Dusky Warbler.
Sandsfoot Castle and Portland Harbour was our next port of call where at least two hundred Mediterranean Gulls passed over and in the harbour we picked out both Great Northern Diver and Black-throated Diver and a good number of Black-necked Grebes.
Off then to the centre of Weymouth and a visit to Radipole RSPB where we soon located the drake Ring-necked Duck, though it was rather distant. A walk around the reserve produced some great views of Bearded Tits and eventually we picked up a Yellow-browed Warbler.

Our next stop was Lodmoor RSPB and after a fair amount of searching we got some good but distant views of a Lesser Yellowlegs before it took flight and landed out of sight. A nice Ruff was also present.

Off the beach in Weymouth Bay we found a Common Scoter and two Eider plus at least one Red-necked Grebe.
We finished the day at Bowleaze but despite our best efforts failed to find any Short-eared Owls, not that it mattered too much as we had a brilliant day.

Arne RSPB - Sat 5 Jan

A trip out today and a nice wander around Arne starting with Coombe Heath where it was pretty quiet on the bird fron though plenty of waders present in Middlebeare channel including several Avocet and a few Black-tailed Godwit amongst others.

After a quick bite to eat in the café it was out to Shipstal Point where again there was a noticeable absence of woodland and heathland birds but a Peregrine passed overhead and out in Poole Harbour there were several Goldeneye and Red-breasted Mergansers.

At least eighteen Spoonbills were noted also.