A reminder that the next In Focus field event at the Obs takes place between 10am and 4pm this Saturday, 13th September.
The law of ornithological - and for that matter entomological - diminishing returns more or less dictates that it'll be getting quieter by the day, and so it came to pass, with today's conspicuously freshened south-easterly coming up with few tangible rewards beyond the continuing presence of a few long-stayers: the Wryneck at Barleycrates Lane, the Nightingale at the Obs and an Icterine Warbler there that on turning up in a mist-net was revealed to be the bird first ringed last week (whether or not it was the individual present over the last couple of days remains to be established). Routine migrants were in relatively short supply overhead as well as being sufficiently thinly spread on the ground as to getting individual mentions on the day-sheet, with nothing more noteworthy than 5 White Wagtails at the Bill making the tally. A minor flurry of interest on the sea included 2 Great Skuas, 2 Arctic Skuas and a Sooty Shearwater through off the Bill.
A Spindle Knot-horn Nephopterix angustella was the sole morsel of interest amongst the handful of common immigrant moths caught overnight at the Obs.
Icterine Warbler and yesterday's Cosmopolitan - Portland Bill, 10th and 9th September 2014 © Martin Cade