14th September

Perhaps we're getting tiresome with the frequency with which we're wishing for more, but today was another day of easterlies that really didn't come up with the goods. Singles of Marsh Harrier over Southwell and Turtle Dove (the first of the autumn) and Short-eared Owl at the Bill were nice but certainly falling well short in the quality stakes of what there quite easily could or ought to have been to keep the weekend visitors happy. Overhead passage again accounted for the bulk of the numbers, with Swallows and Meadow Pipits well into the low hundreds, but on the ground it was again a case of variety rather than quantity: at the Bill, Wheatear chipped in with the highest count but that was only a rather modest 50; most other species struggled to get beyond double figures, whilst 2 Grasshopper Warblers, a Merlin and an early first Reed Bunting of the autumn were the best of the less frequent migrants. Another single Balearic Shearwater passed through off the Bill.

Singles of Convolvulus Hawk-moth and Dark Spectacle were the only immigrants that made it into the Obs garden moth-traps.