4th July

An unexpectedly profound change in the weather saw first a band of steady rain arrive in off the Channel before fog developed and, at least in some spots, lingered for the rest of the day. New arrivals included the first 4 juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls of the summer at Ferrybridge, where 2 Little Ringed Plovers, a Redshank and a Common Gull also dropped in; a Curlew was the only worthwhile newcomer at the Bill, whilst seawatching there came up with 30 Manx Shearwaters, 7 Mediterranean Gulls and a Black-headed Gull.

We're sure that the majority of blog viewers wouldn't thank us if we bored them witless with a summer of endless rather tiresome images of baby seagulls growing up so it's good to get Yellow-legged Gull - a very young/fresh juvenile in this case - done and dusted straight away © Joe Stockwell...



...and while we're at it we can kill two birds with one stone by getting juvenile Mediterranean Gull done at the same time - there was a fly-by at the Bill a couple of days ago but today was the first day with settled birds at Ferrybridge © Joe Stockwell:


This Common Gull was a rather rarer mid-summer visitor to Ferrybridge © Martin Cade:


The season's first juvenile Redshank, also at Ferrybridge © Debby Saunders:


And the latest two of what's been a nice recent flurry of Little Ringed Plovers at Ferrybridge © Martin Cade:


Today's rain and then fog were a welcome relief from the scorching heat of the last few weeks; by the evening the top of the island and Chiswell were treated to a nice sunset whilst Lyme Bay, Weymouth and the mainland were all hidden beneath an enveloping blanket of fog ©  Martin Cade: 


And a bit more catching up: the emergence of Lunar Hornet Clearwings at the Obs was nearly a fortnight later than last year, with the first spotted on Sunday (1st); we must have jammed into this female within minutes of her emerging since she had three males buzzing frantically around her - just as soon as one coupled the other two completely vanished © Martin Cade:


There's been a lot of interest from folk wanting to come and twitch them but they're proving to be just as tricky to get to grips with as they were last year - despite plenty of looking, this one that we fluked into settled on a mist-net this morning has been the only other one that we've seen so far © Martin Cade:


It seems as though Portland was a bit too far west to have scored with any of the rarer immigrant moths that have been reported in recent days - this Splendid Brocade on Monday (2nd) was about as good as it got for us © Martin Cade: