We ended up with so many photos/videos/recordings from today that we couldn't sort them all out before hitting a late night wall of tiredness/befuddlement whilst trying to work out how to age and sex Knots! - they'll have to follow in the next few days.
24th May
Another day with passerine migrants in far greater numbers and variety than would be expected on this date - and it was all the more surprising that they should arrive on a day of balmy sunshine and hardly a waft of a breeze. The Bill area was well covered and provided the bulk of the numbers that included 20 Willow Warblers, 15 Spotted Flycatchers, 10 Whinchats, 5 Reed Warblers, 3 each of Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Blackcap and Chiffchaff, and singles of Hobby, Yellow-legged Gull, Wheatear and Grasshopper Warbler; a few Swifts and hirundines were also still on the move overhead. Other areas weren't so well covered but a scatter of Spotted Flycatchers in particular was evident everywhere and a Cuckoo was at the Verne Citadel. Wader variety improved, with 20 Dunlin, 14 Ringed Plovers, 9 Sanderling, 2 Grey Plover, 2 Knots and a Turnstone grounded at Ferrybridge and 12 Bar-tailed Godwits and a Whimbrel passing overhead there. Manx Shearwaters were again ever-present off the Bill although in lower numbers than yesterday, with 18 Common Scoter, 2 Common Gulls, 2 Sandwich Terns, a Balearic Shearwater, an Arctic Skua and a Mediterranean Gull also through there.
