26th June

Quieter, warm and sunny conditions made a welcome return but, at least in terms of new arrivals, it remained largely uneventful on the bird front. The long-staying but extremely elusive Common Rosefinch made just one appearance all day at Southwell when it showed up on a feeder during the evening. There were a handful of Swifts on the move over the Bill but most of what little was logged there was out to sea, with 46 Common Scoter, 13 Manx Shearwaters, 3 Mediterranean Gulls, a Balearic Shearwater and a Sandwich Tern through and a few feeding Common Terns lingering. The only other reports concerned 36 Mediterranean Gulls settled at Ferrybridge and 7 Little Egrets through overhead there.

A Dark Bordered Pearl Evergestis limbata trapped overnight at the Obs was a long awaited addition to the island moth list; other immigrant interest included 4 Small Mottled Willows and a Vestal at the Obs and singles of European Corn-borer and Small Mottled Willow at the Grove.

Assuming the Dark Bordered Pearl was a stray from the mainland rather than a primary immigrant it's taken the species more than 20 years to finally get here, with the first UK record now as long ago as 1994 © Martin Cade:

The discovery of a what amounts to an infestation of Lunar Hornet Clearwings in the Obs garden has been one of the more interesting events of the year and activity is ongoing, with plenty more sightings of adults including mating pairs during the last few days; in this little video clip from this morning it rather looks like the ?male was a less than willing partner © Martin Cade:

Mediterranean Gull and six of the seven Little Egrets at Ferrybridge this morning © Pete Saunders: