Talking of the new normal, it's long been thought that one of the most overdue additions to the Portland bird list was
Pallid Harrier, so when we received a call from Charlie Richards reporting a small, pale ringtail harrier arriving in off the sea over Chesil Cove our interest was certainly piqued - all the more so when not long afterwards a report was called in of the same bird over the Slopes at the Bill. A small crowd assembled overlooking the nearby Crown Estate Field where the bird duly appeared shortly afterwards before heading off up the valley towards the Business Park; this was followed by a second appearance quite a while later but this time it was lost heading down towards the Bill - with no further sightings it seems likely it may have departed out to sea at this time. In the brisk westerly most of the coverage before this distraction had been of the sea but there was no repeat of yesterday's events: off the Bill the light trickle of
Manx and even fewer
Balearic Shearwaters - just 12 of the latter were logged - included in their midst 3
Sooty Shearwaters, with 40
Sandwich Terns, 6
Arctic Skuas, a
Shelduck and an
Arctic Tern also through there and a
Caspian Gull briefly grounded on East Cliffs; 2
Arctic Skuas and a
Red-throated Diver passed through off Chesil Cove. Searches for the harrier resulted in extensive coverage of the land but it was soon evident there were few passerine arrivals about; the
Marsh Harrier was still lingering about at the Bill - with some evidence of a second individual there - whilst wader interest included a
Knot at the Bill and a good array of the regulars at Ferrybridge.
For observers at the Bill, the harrier was rather distant and the first impressions were of a very fast, agile, lightly-built bird, with the extremely pale underparts and narrow blackish wedge on the underside of the primaries resulting in it immediately being called as a second calendar year Pallid © Martin Cade...
...however, subsequent examination of the photographs obtained led to some doubt creeping in - these three © John Martin...
...three more © Max Barrey:
...and this one © Jodie Henderson:
The hesitancy came about as a narrow dark Montagu's Harrier-ish wing-bar seemed to be visible on the upperwing greater coverts, the head/upper breast looked oddly hooded and there was a feeling/surprise that a second calendar year male would still have such female-like dark upperparts. However, these doubts were quite soon allayed when scrutiny of the literature showed that this freshly-moulted plumage is quite variable and what we were seeing fell well within this variation.
The East Cliffs Caspian Gull - so striking even when most of it isn't visible! Did we really used to overlook things like this or were they just not here? © Matt Ames:
And a non-Ferrybridge Knot for a change © Matt Ames:
Ferrybridge this (windy) morning 4 Bar-tailed Godwit, 4 Knot, 5 Sanderling, 45 Dunlin, 160 Ringed Plover, Redshank, 12 Sandwich Tern
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— Debra Saunders (@debbyseamist.bsky.social) September 10, 2024 at 8:38 AM
