A Black Swan and the Long-Billed Dowitcher at Poole Park and 2 photos of the Pale-Bellied Brent Goose in Poole harbour. Thanks to my lovely mum who generously gave me some money for a weekend away me and the missus booked a night at the Langstone Hotel on Hayling Island. As we couldn't get into our room till around 2pm we went to Poole Park in Dorset first. The reason being that 2 good birds were present. Before we left I checked my year list and noticed that i'd only seen 1 species of wader so far this year that being Lapwing. On arrival we parked up and walked round to the NE corner and there feeding on a very small area of mud that contained at least 4 shoes was my 2nd ever Long-Billed Dowitcher and only my 2nd wader of the year!! My previous LBD was at Old Hall Marshes RSPB in Essex way back in 2005. The bird was showing down to around 10ft totally oblivious to all the birders watching it. The photo above was digi-scoped but as the bird was so close I was the one who had to move back to get a good shot!! the 2nd bird that i'd hoped to see was a Ring-Billed Gull but although it was rumored to have been seen I and most of the other birders missed it. I did however see another bird i'd not seen for many years on the neighbouring Poole harbour where a single Pale-Bellied Brent Goose was in with around 20 of its darker bellied cousins. From memory my las one of these was back in 2002 at Pagham Harbour. Another year tick there were the 3 Mediterranean Gulls. We then headed off to the hotel but not before adding more year ticks in Langstone harbour!! Curlew outside the hotel was species number 100 for the year.
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