28th August

The surge in migration that materialised over the Bank Holiday weekend lost more momentum today but there was still plenty enough on offer around the island even if scarcities remained doggedly absent or undiscovered. Wheatear and Yellow Wagtail remained the most conspicuous species, with 100 or more of each at the Bill alone, whilst among the varied collection of back-ups in lower numbers 3 White Wagtails, a Green Sandpiper and a Firecrest at the Bill were of note. A trickle of passage at sea included 3 Balearic Shearwaters and singles of Arctic Skua and Yellow-legged Gull through off the Bill.

We find it hard to believe there isn't a Wryneck or two lurking somewhere on the island but some pretty conscientious legwork failed to uncover anything out of the ordinary today. We could add that a lot of fieldwork yesterday failed to turn up any sign of this very vocal and very mobile Budgerigar at any time other than for the few minutes it was present in the Obs garden - how did it escape attention for the rest of the day? We also received a message yesterday reporting 'the' flock of 20 released White Storks that had evidently been settled on Chesil Beach close to the island boundary for a considerable time last Saturday morning; although they were spotted later over Abbotsbury it seems their sojourn in the Weymouth area completely escaped the attention of any 'mainstream' birders - these sort of events really do make you wonder how much we're missing! © Martin Cade:


Although absolutely nothing to do with natural history, our highlight of today was the sight of this faintly sinister-looking B52 bomber right over the Obs just after dawn - having spent a chunk of our childhood goggle-eyed at TV footage of these things napalming Vietnam is was oddly surreal to finally see one 'in the flesh' and still in military service getting on for 50 years later © Martin Cade: