Visited Penn's Wood first and great to see the Yellow-browed Warbler was still present. Also here were a dozen or so Long-tailed Tits, Great Tits, Blue Tits, 3 Goldcrests and a Firecrest.
With the sun out and blue sky, the Yellow-browed Warbler was high up in the tree tops feeding on insects. And for the first time since I've been watching daily, it actually called. I have heard it sing briefly, but this time it was calling quite well, which made following it very easy in amongst all the other tits and crests.
Yellow-browed Warbler calling
After watching it for a good 30 minutes it was off down to the beach at Church Ope Cove where the holidaymakers outnumbered the Rock Pipits 22 to 21. I suppose with that amount of people on the beach it wasn't going to be a surprise to find that the Black Redstart had moved on. Hopefully this will only be temporary, but with the school holidays lasting into the first week of January, I'm not holding my breath that it will return. It was quite sadly really as there were several birdwatchers that had made their way down from Wakeham to see it.
As mentioned above the 21 Rock Pipits are still here along with the "resident" Pied Wagtails, Grey Wagtail, Wrens and Robin, though they were all struggling to stay in one place as the public were travelling to and fro from one cliff face to the other.
Just before I left the beach I was watching 6 geese out to see heading north and then to my amazement there were another 80+ following behind them. They were a long way out and without a scope I can only surmise that they were most likely to have been Brent Geese doing a circuit of the island before heading back to the Fleet!!!!
Here a few images from today including 6 record shots of the Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler
Firecrest
Firecrest
Church Ope Cove
The "resident" Grey Wagtail
Grey Wagtail catching flies.
One of the 21 Rock Pipits here today.
The "resident" male Pied Wagtail
The male Pied Wagtail
Durdle Door
St Aldhelm's Head viewed from Church Ope Cove. The chapel is Here
I took a similar photo like this of St Aldhelm's Head on 8 Nov 17 Here
Birds recorded: probable 80+ Dark-bellied Brent Geese, 1 Kestrel, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Wood Pigeon, 21 Rock Pipit, 2 Pied Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Yellow-browed Warbler, 3 Goldcrest, 1 Firecrest, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Wren, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch and Goldfinch.