Late April proved to be exciting locally with a Woodchat Shrike found within walking distance of the house. Foolishly, I didn't take the camera with me when I went to look for it, so I have no photos of my own. News didn't get out to its second day on the 25th. Three days later, I received a call that there was a local Hoopoe on private land for its second day and the landowner kindly gave me permission to pop along & have a look that evening. This was the fourth local Hoopoe in the month, with earlier individuals in Swanage, Harmans Cross & Worth Matravers. Fortunately, the first two of those had been twitchable and so most of the local Birders had seen at least one of these Hoopoes this Spring. I was about the only local who had missed out on these Hoopoes as I was out of the country on the West Pacific Odyssey. This made it less of a concern that access and news about this individual couldn't be made more publicly available at the time. I drove onto the site, to find it feeding on the entrance track & spent about twenty minutes watching it feed, before it flew off the track. This was time to leave it in peace. It was looked for the following day without success.
This is only my third Hoopoe in the Isle of Purbeck, with the previous individuals being at Arne on 23 Apr 2011 & one I found at Greenlands Farm on 24 Apr 2014. Despite being nearly annual somewhere in the Isle of Purbeck they rarely stay around long enough to see.