14th May

There's still plenty of time for spring to come good on the rarity front but it's fair to say that the twelve hours of working the Obs garden mist-nets for a nil return today tells us all we need to know about the common migrant situation - passage is all over bar the shouting. Three Reed Warbler were literally the only grounded arrivals logged in the whole Bill area, where a few Swallows were arriving overhead but even they didn't look to have been tempted into the air by the return of sunny skies. There are surely more hirundines and Swifts to come - perhaps along with one of our Spotted Flycatcher surges - but if they're largely over as well then we'd think there must have been some sort of House Martin catastrophe since our totals of them this spring have been absolutely pitiful. The day's fresh onshore breeze looked to offer promise from the sea but a tally that included the summer's first Balearic Shearwater off Chesil and combined Bill/Chesil totals of 460 Kittiwakes, 390 Gannets, 5 Arctic Skuas, 3 Great Northern Divers, 3 Great Skuas and an Arctic Tern lacked the quality expected.