Pied Flycatcher – Portland, Dorset
A friend of mine had posted photos of an Osprey on a nesting platform in Poole Harbour and having got more information Dad and I decided to go the next day and combine it with […]
Portland
American Cliff Swallow – Portland Naval Cemetery, Dorset
On Thursday my pager bleeped at work and I knew that this meant mega alert and that a major rarity had turned up. In a perverse way I prayed it wasn’t in Dorset and I was therefore slightly relieved to see it was on the Scillies. It was, however, a bird I needed (American Cliff Swallow) and a very rare one at that. I rang Peter who had already had the mega alert on his pager and he had already made some tentative plans to twitch Scilly at the weekend, probably with Richard Baatsen […]
Iberian Chiffchaff – Portland Naval Cemetery, Dorset
On Sunday 25th April while walking his local patch at the Verne near Portland, Charles Richards located an odd Chiffchaff singing at the bottom of the densely vegetated steep hillside under the Verne Cliffs about 200 yards beyond the Portland Naval Cemetery. It was the loud and distinctive song which had attracted his attention and after several attempts he managed good views but left the site believing that it was just a Chiffchaff with an unusual song […]
Long-eared Owl – Portland Cemetery, Dorset
Long-eared Owls were regularly roosting during the day on Portland at the Naval Cemetery. It’s probably the hardest of the resident 5 British owls to see and so I headed down to Portland. With other […]
