6th November

Lots of quality if slightly lower numbers again today, with an arrival of 3 Pallas's Warblers, 3 Yellow-browed Warblers and a Siberian Chiffchaff at Southwell certainly the day's headline; 2 each of Woodcock, Ring Ouzel and Hawfinch, and singles of Great White Egret, Mistle Thrush, Siberian Chiffchaff and Lapland Bunting played second fiddle at the Bill, whilst the Red-necked Grebe remained in Portland Harbour. In very mizzly conditions common migrants at the Bill included 450 Redwings, 300 Chaffinches, 95 Skylarks, 18 Siskins, 8 Fieldfares, 4 Lapwings, 3 Bramblings and a Redpoll overhead and approaching double figure totals of Black Redstart, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Goldcrest on the ground.

Our firm belief in 'no photo, no record' is long-established and of course often a rod for our own back; however, providing you've got no concern whatever about picture quality something's nearly always possible now that cameras can successfully be pushed to what would have once seemed like ridiculously high iso numbers. At times, birding Avalanche Road this afternoon seemed a bit like being in a coal cellar at midnight but, providing you could actually get on to one or other of the Yellow-browed or Pallas's Warblers, the camera resolved far more useful detail than you were seeing through binoculars © Martin Cade:

 
If you wonder why we spend so much time running mist-nets the answer is that, apart from chipping in a bit of science, you're barmy not doing so on a migration headland like Portland because you're going to miss an amazing number of birds without them - and of course you get much more scorching views of those that you do catch. This afternoon, whilst looking for warblers at the former Southwell School, we completely failed to get onto a Redpoll that was feeding ultra-unobtrusively in the leaves but we weren't too perturbed because earlier in the day we'd been fortunate enough to gross out on every detail of one from the Crown Estate Fields nets (Redpolls have been thin on the ground and this was the first one ringed at the Bill this year) © Martin Cade:

Much improved migrant moth totals overnight at the Obs but a Golden Twin-spot the only scarcity; 265 Rusty-dot Pearl & 10 Gem both highest totals of the year. A Brimstone the best of the unseasonables.

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— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) November 6, 2024 at 11:22 AM