A trip over to the Isle of White with Dave and Paul.
I picked Dave up at Watford Junction at 07:00 and then we met up with Paul at Maple Lodge. The roads were a bit quieter than I expected and we made good time on our journey down to Portsmouth to catch the 09:30 ferry. After a smooth but birdless crossing of the Solent we arrived at Fishbourne and headed straight for Niton and the NT Wydcombe House. On arrival at the joint National Trust/RSPB watch point we parked up and were soon viewing 2 Bee-eater. They were on telephone wires and not great views. They then re-located to a dead tree and began hunting. We were watching these exotic looking birds as they hunted and then perched in their favourite dead tree. We noticed that there were 3 birds and then Dave picked out another, so 4 Bee-eater in total. The highest number reported from this site prior to yesterday was 3 and for the last few days only 2 birds had been seen. I tweeted RBN with the news of 4 birds and Dave phoned the pager. It then started to rain so we went off to Tesco Express for refreshments. The rain had stopped so we went back for a second helping of Bee-eater. This time we struck lucky as a single Bee-eater was perched up in a dead tree fairly close to the entrance. We enjoyed some good views before it flew off and disappeared from sight. We hung around for a bit longer but no further sign of the birds sow headed back to Fishbourne for the 2 o'clock ferry.
