Friday
5th February fresh to strong SW rain all AM, cloudy PM
Over
to Studland beach to look for black-necked grebes in drizzly rain and
mist. I arrive at the middle beach car park and am astonished to see
over eighty Mediterranean gulls here. Around twelve years ago when I
lived in Swanage it was always good to see one Med' gull. Here was a
flock of them of all ages too.
Looking
out over a misty, calm sea I can just make out a distant group of six
black-necked grebes, bird number 150 for the list.
Wanting
to look in the famous WW2 bunker used by Churchill and Eisenhower,
Montgomery and Mountbatten to oversee D-Day landing practise on the
beach, I walk around to it and further to try and get closer views of
the grebes. The rain gets heavier and the views are still poor.
Next
stop is Wareham Forest which I reach within an hour. A great grey
shrike has been seen sporadically near Strawberry Hill enclosure but
I cannot find it and neither can two Dorset birders looking for the
same.
I
need to cycle over twenty miles to Ringwood in order t be there for
an early morning start at Blashford Lakes and the rest of the
afternoon and early evening I spend doing so.
Year
list now at 150, twenty ahead of this time last year.
45.95
miles 2035 feet elevation up 2097 feet elevation down
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