gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

On the 27th I managed to catch up with one bird that has been avoiding me this year, a nice male Blackcap that I saw in Ewan’s garden bringing my year list to 203. Some years I have seen fewer birds in the entire twelve months than I have in the first two of 2012.

For much of the 27th and the 28th I carried on with an non-birding project, the very time-consuming task of transferring music from old cassettes to my PC. The quality has been quite variable, after all some of the music came for old 45s I bought in the sixties, and I may have to put my hand in my pocket and buy new copies of these musical relics.

On the 29th I headed for the Ower area on the south side of Poole Harbour. A copse here has proved to be a good spot for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, and I have seen them here several times in the past. On arrival I heard a soft tapping coming from fairly low down in the thickets, much searching failed to locate the perpetrator. I know it was too quiet for a Great Spot, too loud for a tit, I didn’t hear any Nuthatches, so I can’t escape the thought that I passed up a Lesser Spot.

The woodland was full of birds, half a dozen Treecreepers, a pair of Marsh Tits, Great Spots and Green Woodpeckers, a couple of Nuthatches (in a different area) a few Redpolls and shed loads of Siskin. I walked past Ower Farm towards Studland but failed to find any thing new. I also checked the woodland at Sherford Bridge for Lesser Spots, again without success.

Damp, mossy woodland at Ower.

Treecreeper

Ower Farm with Poole Harbour in the background.

In the late afternoon Carol, Terry and I attempted to ring a Reed Bunting roost at Lytchett Bay. This is the same area that we used to ring Pied Wagtails in the autumn. The net ride is very muddy and seems to have been greatly widened over the winter perhaps by local fisherman. We saw some nice birds, a Peregrine, a 100+ Redwings coming to roost and after dark, a pair of Tawny Owls  but the ringing was most disappointing with a total catch of zero! I think that we have left this attempt to late in the year and that the Buntings no longer are roosting communally and are dispersing to breed.