6th July

Portland Bill
Manx Shearwater 7w, Grey Heron 2s, Common Scoter 7w, Whimbrel 3w 1etc, Turnstone 1s, Mediterranean Gull 20etc, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1, Swallow 20s, Sand Martin 11s, Blackcap 1.

Sweethill
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1.

Ferrybridge 
Dunlin 5, Sanderling 3, Turnstone 5, Wheatear 1.

This morning's Sanderlings at Ferrybridge © Pete Saunders:


A few of the locally-bred young Common Terns are also beginning to show up at Ferrybridge © Debby Saunders:


As we might have related from time to time in recent years it seems to be getting harder and harder to catch Storm Petrels in any numbers at the Bill: in the good old days - that is getting on for 30 years ago now! - it seemed like you could almost lure them in at will and with what seemed like perfunctory effort we had single night catches of up to 32 and annual totals of up 121; these days completely blank sessions occur as often as the odd ones and twos are caught. Last night we did at least catch two even if that did take two hours of trying © Martin Cade:



The fantastic thing about Storm Petrel ringing - apart of course from the opportunities it affords for close encounters with such a great bird - is that it generates so many recoveries. Our 600 or so ringed at Portland have generated getting on for 150 subsequent recaptures by other ringers - if only we had a hit-rate like that with migrant passerines!; we'll dwell on these another day but for now Jodie's been tinkering with mapping (using Stephen Vicker's clever little recoveries mapping app) the ringing locations of the birds we've 'controlled' at Portland... 


...additional to these British and Irish movements we've also encountered birds ringed in Norway, France and Portugal. More on Storm Petrels in the next few days...