Arne, Radipole, and Portland.

There are times when I love watching nature on my own, when you can stop and sit and absorb your surroundings at will, and there are times when its a real pleasure to have someone to share your experiences with. This long weekend I spent birding with someone whose company I really enjoy with whom I visited places I probably wouldn't have gone to on my own.
The Friday plan was to find Dartford Warbler for which we intended to head to Studland Heath where good views were almost guaranteed. However, I got a bit greedy and decided we would drive to Arne or Middlebere first and look for Spoonbill and Osprey, before making our way round Poole harbour to Studland, then back across the chain ferry.
We arrived at Arne and navigated our way across the heath to the tune of the occasional Willow Warbler to a viewpoint where we were assured we might see an Osprey in a dead tree somewhere. Sadly, dreadfully, but not unexpectedly, we failed, although on the way we did see Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Linnet amongst other small brown jobs, and then a pair of Dartford Warblers which disappeared into the undergrowth the moment I took my lens cap off.
A little further on we disappeared into the hide (the whole purpose of a hide) which overlooks Middlebere channel and were greeted by views over 100 upon 100 of Black Tailed Godwit. We made various guestimates without counting but came up short of the official count of around a 1000, quite a sight. No definite Spoonbills, and not even a glimpse of a raptor, we headed back.
Near the end of our walk we heard and then saw an obliging Dartford who stood up for a few seconds scolding us for passing his territory

The best laid plans of mice and birders suddenly changed. On a whim, from heading south east we decided to head south west to the reserves of Radipole and Lodmoor. These aren't my favourite places for really only one reason. Background traffic noise. So close to busy Weymouth, particularly from Easter onwards, its difficult to pretend you are in a reedbed wilderness, although the birds manage to.
Several Sedge Warbler and a number of Cettis Warbler made themselves spectacularly obvious over the sound of internal combustion engines, and briefly one Reed Warbler tried but gave up as we approached it at Lodmoor. Most interesting I thought were the large number of Dunnocks which fequented the path and seemed mostly oblivious to people sharing the walkway

Plans unchanged for the moment, we headed for Radipole in the hope of something spectacular. Sure enough, an apparent local celebrity was present seemingly, a Hooded Merganser. Ok so this wild vagrant fish and invertebrate eater happily swam to people and ate bread from their hand, but we still took a while to find it. Still in the meantime we wandered round listening to Cettis and Sedge Warblers without really getting a good view (except once when I wasn't ready so didn't count).. About halfway round on a small bridge we heard a Cettis close to, so we stopped and sat on the wall for a while to see if it would pop up. Both of us recalled waiting on a similar wall on a similar bridge at Slapton Ley in Devon, hoping for a similar view of the then very rare Cettis Warbler. How fabulous it is to have a warbler that is not just extending its range but its numbers on these shores, or almost any bird for that matter. After about half an hour we rewarded with a typical 2 second view of this secretive bird, and just for a change I was a bit too slow with the camera. My camera shoots 7 frames per second, so these two subsequent pictures gives you an idea quite how quick you usually have to be to get a good shot (which I didn't)

This is my most successful attempt yet, but I will persevere and try to stop taking photos of bramble bushes at Fishlake.
On the way back we did find the Hooded Merganser, it was hard not to, as people were feeding it bread. So I include just the one photo for posterity. Wildfowl collection escape? Erm well yes. Still, its not its fault, as an individual entity its still a dapper bird, I just hope someone finds a friend for it to play with.

At this point we should have headed home having strayed somewhat from the itinerary (like not stuck to it at all) but like all good birders away from home we decided to take a slightly deviant route via Portland Bill.
Despite the glorious sunshine, there was a distinct chill in the gentle breeze off the Bill as we set off along the coast path in a fruitless search for Purple Sandpipers on the rocks. Apart from the occasional Swallow coming in off the sea, things were pretty quiet although we did get nice views of this Rock Pipit

 and it got not so nice views of us

It is not entirely surprising to find this bird ringed as it was just below the bird observatory which we visited next. The good and very informed people there welcomed us in to see what had been noted through the day and we spent a pleasant hour on the sheltered terrace enjoying the sunshine and looking over the garden for spring arrivals. Again it was pretty quiet, the only migrants being one Willow Warbler and a steady trickle of Swallows.

Walking back through the beach huts Russ spotted this fine Black Redstart which took a liking to the beach hut roofs

I stood and waited for it to fly, hoping to catch the bright orange flash from its spread tail, but this bird had other ideas and spectacularly avoided its most prominent feature being digitally recorded

That was the height of the excitement on the walk back, although it was lovely to see Linnets showing the first pink blushes of spring