1st May

Passage - at least that impinging on us - has slowed right down at the moment, with today's light northwesterly doing nothing to perk things up; it wasn't that there weren't birds about but the feeling was always that there could have been an awful lot more in early May. Around the south of the island two Cuckoos, a Grasshopper Warbler and a Firecrest were new, the lingering Ring Ouzel remained and the first multiple arrival of Spotted Flycatchers featured amongst the commoner migrants; 60 Willow Warblers, 25 Wheatears and 20 each of Blackcap and Whitethroat accounted for the bulk of the numbers on the ground, whilst overhead Swallows and Sand Martins were arriving in an at times more than steady trickle. The breeze was always too offshore for the sea, with singles of Great Northern Diver and Arctic Skua - along with a good for this late total of 25 Common Gulls - the best off the Bill.