Late news for the last few days: yesterday's Pale-bellied Brent Goose tally at Portland Harbour ended up on at least 96 (flocks of 19, 14 and at least 63). The year's first Clouded Yellow butterfly was on the wing at the Bill on Saturday (30th April).
Common Gull - Portland Bill, 2nd May 2016 © Ted Pressey
With a long posting and lots of photographs to get through last evening we completely forgot this wacky-looking Common Gull that had passed by during the afternoon. It was sufficiently startling when first spotted at distance off Chesil Cove to merit a tip-off call to report that it was heading towards the Bill, where Ted happened to be on station and was able to secure some images at closer range; at distance its creamy-white wings had invited thoughts of a larger white-winged gull and it was only the closer views and photographs that enabled the ID to be clinched. Although first-summer Common Gulls do often get pretty bleached there was something about this bird that suggested the extreme paleness of the wings more likely arose due to some sort of plumage abnormality.
Also, news from last month of an interesting fungus discovered/photographed on blackthorn in the Obs garden by Ken Dolbear and Bryan Edwards:
...Bryan reports as follows: I finally got round to sectioning the fungus from the other weekend and the
microscopic features all tally with Perenniporia
ochroleuca. It is the third Dorset record and the species is widespread
in Cornwall but uncommon or rare elsewhere and usually on or near the coast; it
is essentially a Mediterranean species at the northern edge of its range. As with a lot of fungi it is probably under-recorded,
especially as Blackthorn thickets are not the easiest or most inviting of
habitats to survey. As well as the small one photographed on the stick we found three slightly
larger brackets on dead standing Prunus stems.
