13th October

A little bit more about today although quality was still sadly lacking. Two Yellow-browed Warblers remained at the Craft Centre, with a new individual showing up at Weston, whilst Ring Ouzels increased to 14 (including 7 at West Weare and 4 at Coombefield. Visible passage accounted for most of the day's numbers, with a steady trickle of mainly thrushes and finches heading through into the brisk north-easterly - at the Bill these included 60 Redwings and the first Fieldfare of the autumn; grounded migrants weren't at all plentiful and to a great extent were active migrants pausing just briefly. The day's only other reports concerned 650 Brent Geese, 6 Bar-tailed Godwits, 2 Grey Plovers, a Sanderling and a Sandwich Tern at Ferrybridge.

Immigrant moth numbers at the Obs again hovered around the 10 individuals of a handful of routine species.

Ring Ouzels have been a feature species of the last week or so - this one was showing nicely at Coombefield today © Steve Carey stevecareybirdphotography

...whilst we take on board the reasoning behind the recent purge on invasive cotoneaster undertaken/supported by some local conservation organisations we do wonder if in places this hasn't been just a little too severe and to the detriment of the ornithological interest of these sites: as Steve's photograph indicates, migrant thrushes are very keen on cotoneaster and, on Portland at least, anecdotal evidence suggests that Ring Ouzels in particular choose it in preference to other autumn food sources.