8th June

Although late spring/early autumn passage again delivered a small flurry of migrants the day's main interest came in the form of a Subalpine Warbler trapped and ringed at the Obs; it was released into the Obs Quarry from where it eventually emerged a couple of hours later only to quickly disappear again across nearby fields. The day's commoner migrants included 5 Chiffchaffs, 2 Wheatears and singles of Ringed Plover, Reed Warbler and Blackcap at the Bill, 19 Common Scoter, 9 Manx Shearwaters and an Arctic Skua through on the sea there and 25 Ringed Plover, 20 Dunlin and 6 Sanderling at Ferrybridge.

As seems to be what's usual at this time of year with what we're presuming is a first-summer female Western Subalpine Warbler the bird's plumage was in a pretty shoddy state...



...the absence of any recent flight feather moult other than a couple of inner secondaries (as would be usual in Western Subalpine Warbler) would seem to rule out that it might be a Moltoni's Warbler...


...the outer tail feathers were of an adult pattern (we've handled first-summers in the past that have the outer feathers literally reduced to a shaft only) but we suspected these feathers had been replaced out of sync with any normal moult...


...finally, it was interesting to discover that the bird had a well-formed brood patch and had presumably at least attempted to breed sometime earlier this spring © Martin Cade: