9th March

Waiting for the spring's first Wheatear is often Portland's equivalent of Waiting for Godot and today fitted that bill perfectly. The arrival of considerably milder air - and as the day went on, pleasantly warm sunshine - did precious little to perk up the migrant tally that consisted at the Bill of just 2 grounded Redwings, a handful of incoming Meadow Pipits and 13 Black-headed Gulls, a Red-throated Diver and a Great Northern Diver through on the sea. Six Purple Sandpipers, 2 Short-eared Owls, 2 Black Redstarts, a Bullfinch and a Reed Bunting were also lingering on there, the Hume's Warbler showed up a couple of times at Thumb Lane and 8 Black-necked Grebes and 3 Slavonian Grebes were in Portland Harbour.

One of the two Bill Black Redstarts © Keith Pritchard:


And to end, a bit of off-island interest. The annual departure of Weymouth's wintering Bitterns is something that we've wanted to witness for a while (...this event hadn't been 'discovered' all those years ago when we used to scrutinise the gulls in Weymouth every evening but would have packed up and gone home before dusk) and after drawing a blank on several visits to Lodmoor last year we gave Radipole a try this evening. This isn't an event that offers anything to anyone who wants feather perfect views but it turned out to be as wholly gripping as we'd imagined it was going to be: this evening's bird appeared about half-an-hour after sunset when there was still plenty enough light to follow it in silhouette although only just about enough to get some photos...


...it circled the north end of the reserve at relatively low level for a couple of minutes...


...all the time calling as it went. Whilst Radipole has very many merits, these days you maybe don't really get the feel for being at one with nature there, what with the constant din of traffic, trains, yobs and whatever else gets in the way of making a nice clean sound recording!...



...finally, after a third circuit, it gained height and headed away steadily to the northeast to end what had been a truly exciting little event (many thanks to Dick Morris in particular for allowing us to tap into his experiences with departing birds at Lodmoor) © Martin Cade: