4th July

Another day of clear blue skies and little more than a waft of a breeze. The 2 Serins remained at the Bill although also remained rather mobile and elusive, whilst a Cuckoo provided the best of the migrant interest there; also on the land - or at least overhead - a few Swifts and Sand Martins trickled through. The first juvenile Yellow-legged Gull was an on cue arrival off the Bill, where 25 Mediterranean Gulls lingered and 2 Puffins were still about. The only other report was of 64 Mediterranean Gulls at Ferrybridge.

A Large Tortoiseshell was at Tout Quarry, whilst the best of the night's moths were a Suspected at Weston and a Vestal at the Grove.

And back to yesterday for something we forgot last evening: this juvenile Black Redstart popped up briefly during the day in a garden at Southwell; Black Redstarts have bred from time to time at Portland but we've also got several previous records of mid-summer juveniles turning up in years when there were no known breeding pairs - do juvenile Black Reds have a known propensity to wander fair distances or did we just miss a breeding pair this year? © Nick Stantiford:


And while we're going back in time we may as well jump right back to last week and, as is our want, poach a nice bird from the Weymouth area: we never did see many images of the Lodmoor White-winged Black Tern (on Wednesday 26th June) so when regular visitor Leslie Crofts mentioned photographing it we asked if we could post a couple here; this bird was likely a missed opportunity for Portland as well since when it left Lodmoor for the last time we wouldn't mind betting it flew right through Portland Harbour and over Ferrybridge (the route the Common Terns from the Lodmoor colony often take when going on longer fishing trips) - sadly, neither was being covered at the time © Leslie Crofts: