This afternoon I went on a pre-booked boat trip for a Low Tide Cruise organised by the Birds of Poole Harbour. Despite the welcome sunshine, there was a chilly easterly wind blowing and I was glad I had put on 5 layers! I arrived in good time and sat on a bench by the harbour to wait. A couple of starlings perched up on the wall next to me, and I couldn't help noticing the beauty of their iridescent feathers.
One of the attractions in Poole harbour is the pair of white tailed eagles from a relocation programme which have taken up residence in the harbour so our guide was constantly on the lookout for these! On my last trip back last May we had failed to find them, although we did have distant views of an osprey. However, the ospreys have not yet returned for the season.
We started our three hour trip by going up the North channel, where we looked for divers and grebes. We had good views of at least 7 or 8 Great Northern Divers, as well as short glimpses of a black throated diver, a black necked grebe and several great crested grebes.
I was also keen to see Red breasted merganser, a species I'd never seen, so was pleased to see quite a few of these during our trip too. We passed the Brownsea lagoon, where there were a number of waders including spoonbills but couldn't get too near as the tide was low. I learned today that Poole Harbour is surprisingly only one metre deep!
Sailing round the harbour, many of the mudflats were now exposed with plenty of waders, including curlew, redshank and spotted redshank, avocets, also dark bellied Brent geese. On the mammal front we saw common and atlantic seals and sika deer.
We made our way toward the Wareham channel for the final part of our tour, but then did an about turn because one of the guides had spotted one of the resident white-tailed eagles sitting on a spit in the distance and many of the passengers were hoping to see one. Initially it was just a dark blob in the distance although we could see that it was a very large bird compared to everything else! Even at our nearest point it was hard to make out the eagle but zooming in on my photos it can be clearly seen.
Throughout the trip, we had some excellent commentary by the two team members on board, and despite the wind it was a great trip.
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