A blustery and frequently damp day saw another struggling day list. Only the strongest fliers made it through, with an inbound Little Egret and a few Swifts and House Martins overhead and 2 Wheatears and a single Spotted Flycatcher on the ground. The sea produced a steady westbound trickle of Manx Shearwaters and Kittiwakes - including a worthwhile 175 of a latter in four hours during the morning - along with 3 more Great Northern Divers, 2 Arctic Skuas and a single Pomarine Skua. Wader numbers - including 51 Sanderlings - increased at little at Ferrybridge.
We haven't read up on the extent to which Little Terns are known to move between breeding colonies but we were fascinated and surprised in equal measure to hear from the Chesil Little Tern Project that IX2 that was first marked as a chick at Portrane Beach, County Dublin in July 2018 was resighted at Ferrybridge last Saturday, 22nd May; evidently the bird's two siblings returned to Portrane Beach last summer but this is the first resighting of IX2 since it was marked. It seems very late for the bird to be a migrant still en route to Ireland so it'll be interesting to see if it's found to be breeding at Ferrybridge © John Dadds/Chesil Little Tern Project...
