19th April

One night off the full moon, a crystal clear sky and precious little by way of a headwind - hardly the recipe for any sort of drop of migrants but such are the vagaries of migration-watching that you never really know how each day's going to pan out. Today's Bank Holiday visitors were treated to a really pretty decent arrival of newcomers amongst which Willow Warbler and Blackcap (their south of the island totals were 250 and 120 respectively) were still strongly to the fore. However, variety has been improving by the day, with Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and Sedge Warbler all firsts for the season today; other interest around the south included 100 Wheatears, 75 Whitethroats, 22 Redstarts, 15 Whinchats, 11 Yellow Wagtails, 10 White Wagtails, 10 Tree Pipits, 5 Pied Flycatchers, 4 Grasshopper Warblers, 2 Serins (fly-overs at the Obs and Reap Lane) and singles of Hobby, Short-eared Owl and Ring Ouzel. The sea was a tad disappointing: 30 Little Gulls through off the Bill was a potentially good sign but the back-ups consisted of not much more than 6 Red-throated Divers, 3 Arctic Skuas, a Black-throated Diver and a Great Skua, with terns in particular almost completely absent.

Whinchats always look great at this time of year © Geoff Orton:


What with all the holidaymakers about making the most of the glorious conditions we're guessing that today must have been a pretty traumatic day for our singing Wheatear in the Bill Quarry (...presumably last year's bird back for another go) - it's hard to imagine there'd be a more disturbed potential breeding site than this anywhere in the UK! © Martin Cade:


Nick Hopper kindly sent us through a report on two more nocturnal recording sessions last week (15th/16th and 16th/17th April). Both nights produced a selection of seasonable waders, whilst further variety during the second night came in the form of singles of Swallow and Linnet (both rarely recorded at night during this project), 3 Tree Pipits, a Pied Flycatcher and this Coot: