With Storm Betty itself a rather brief affair confined to the hours of darkness dawn broke surprisingly brightly and with a well below gale force southwesterly blowing. Two more
Cory's Shearwaters through off the Bill during the morning were a welcome result of the storm's passing but sea action was otherwise confined to not much more than 8
Manx Shearwaters, 6
Arctic Skuas, a
Balearic Shearwater and a
Sooty Shearwater passing the Bill and 2
Arctic Skuas and singles of
Balearic Shearwater,
Grey Plover,
Little Gull and
Arctic Tern through at Chesil Cove. A stir-up in wader situation was to have been expected but at Ferrybridge consisted of little more than increases to 120
Ringed Plover, 120
Dunlin, 16
Redshank, 13
Turnstones and 3
Common Sandpipers; 2
Mute Swans were also there. Passerines looked to have sat out the storm, with a single
Pied Flycatcher the pick of a sparsely spread and not at all varied selection of grounded arrivals at the Bill.
The local breeding population of Peregrines has fared really poorly this year with several sites either unoccupied or deserted during the course of the breeding season; this independent juvenile over Ferrybridge this morning is one of the few sightings of a youngster in recent weeks and, plausibly, by this time in the autumn might not even be a locally-raised bird © Pete Saunders:
