30th June

A none too vintage June drew to an uneventful close, with nothing much more than singles of Curlew and Greenshank over the Bill, the same or another Greenshank over Blacknor and 25 Mediterranean Gulls at Ferrybridge.

Despite it being the chilliest, dewiest night for a while interest picked up a little in the Obs garden moth-traps, with singles of Spindle Knot-horn Nephopterix angustella, Double-lobed and Marbled White-spot all noteworthy wanderers; 5 Rusty-dot Pearl, 3 Diamond-back Moth and 2 Silver Y were the only conventional immigrants caught.



Little Owls - Southwell and Portland Bill, June 2014 © Martin Cade

...and at the conclusion of last night's World Cup penalty shoot-out we were feeling rather more awake than we should have been so decided on another impromptu petrel ringing session, with the 10 birds trapped coming in at sufficiently regular enough intervals that we ended up sticking with it until daybreak (photo © Martin Cade):


We've noticed before that after mid-summer the birds seem to get a fair bit more vocal, and that was certainly the case last night when there was much more calling in flight than we'd heard previously this summer. Several were also pretty noisy in the hand: