15th September

A crystal clear night followed by an absolute scorcher of a day produced unsurprisingly little in the way of scarcities. The terrible two continued their stint at the opposite ends of the spectrum, the Wryneck being ultra-elusive and the Lapland Bunting dangerously unafraid (it nearly got run over by an uninitiated cyclist). Besides this, the early morning was spattered with flocks of high flying flocks of Meadow Pipits and diminished numbers of Yellow and White Wagtails were to be found on the deck around the Bill and east cliffs. Hirundines put in a decent passage although numbers were difficult to ascertain over such a broad front, the maximum count of a single flock of Swallows reached 700 above the top fields.

Moth interest still hasn't really picked up but last evening we did finally manage to secure a little bit of video of one of the Convolvulus Hawks that have been regular visitors to the Nicotiana flowers in our garden at the Grove - in previous years they've been pretty straightforward to video but this year they seem to be really skittish and have been zipping off the moment a torch is shone at them © Martin Cade:


Hummingbird Hawkmoths are still about in good quantity by day - this one was at Easton a couple of days ago © Ken Dolbear: