Aug 31 2016
Green Sandpiper (WWT Slimbridge) on 20th, Curlew Sandpiper (WWT Slimbridge) on 21st, Litle Owl (Studland Bay) on 27th, Sparrowhawk (at WWT Steart Marshes) on 28th, Glossy Ibis (Shapwick Heath) on 30th.
Aug 31 2016
We had a long drive ahead of us up to Manchester and it turned out to be bir arduous and our worst trtaffic of the holiday despite most of it being over a bank holiday and our return day being a normal day. Still we thought we had time for a quick couple of hours at Slimbridge before heading home. Whilst we did not see anything particularly wonderful, a quick vivit gave us a good number of waders including Green and Common Sandpipers, Ruff and Snipe.
Aug 30 2016
We arrived from Shapwick Heath at Slimbridge about ten minutes to two o’clock and we rushed to the reception to see if they were running a Range Rover tour of the site. We had tried twice before on this holiday but wet ground had meant that the trailey they mount behind the Land Rover to carry the passengers was getting bogged down. To our great surprise we got there just in time to get the last two seats for the day. We rushed down a quick sandwich and after a bit a member of staff and a volunteer came to pick us up.
Aug 28 2016
WIth three nights at Montacute we had a chance to visit a site that we had both read a lot about and also seen TV clips on – the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust site at Steart Marshes. This is a recently created wetland between Bridgewater Bay and the River Parrett. This river had in recent years been the source of much flooding in the are and this reserve was an attempt to mitigate the effects of high tides and storm on the surrounding land. You can read more about it here. and find a map of the site here.
Aug 27 2016
On the morning of the 27th we were due to return to Montacute where we were staying in our friends’ house for a few again, this time while they were away in Lanzarote, so we made sure that we fitted in some birding en route. Our first stop was Portland Bill which, in my mind, I had hopelessly confused with Spurn Head !! Here we managed to get a really satisfying year tick as well as a small number of typical species for the habitat.
Aug 26 2016
One of the highlights of the rserve is not the cafe and shop which sits slightly uphill of the visitor centre. This used to belong to afarmer but they persuased him to move to a building a few hundred metres away so they could convert the farmhouse into a visitor cafe with shop and toilets. Apparently there had been a Nightjar roosting in a tree near the cafe and it had been roosting for a good length of time. THe bad news for us, though, was that it seemed to have moved off. Still it gave us an excuse to have a cup of tea while we scanned the trees for it.
Aug 25 2016
Our boat trip to Brownsea Island was fairly uneventful though there were a few Sandwich Terns flying around the bay. On the island we mainly concentrated on the Dorset Wildlife Trust part of the island which includes the lagoon. Away from that we did see some woodland birds and a Great Spotted Woodpecker. However the lagoon was the main attraction and we would have been mightily impressed with the Spoonbills there had we not seen so many recenty so close to home at Burton Mere Wetlands.
Aug 24 2016
Although this post says Keyhaven, in fact the location was really Hurst Castle at the end of the pebble spit that starts in Keyhaven at the junction of Saltgrass Lane and New Lane. Previously we had walked along Saltgrass Lane and got did good birding there before walking up the spit. This time we were not up for the two-mile walk along the spit so we headed for the quay where small boats do a ferry service between Hurst Castle and a quay at the Keyhaven Yacht Club.