28th April

A decent day that saw the entertaining enough spread of grounded migrants bolstered by the presence of several oddities; the fact that the day's events were played out in fair weather was also welcome after a weekend of quite unsettled conditions. With very little coverage reported from elsewhere most of the day's reports came from the Bill, where a Woodlark was an unseasonable arrival in off the sea, a Siberian Chiffchaff was trapped and ringed at the Obs and a Hoopoe pitched up in Top Fields; the Iceland Gull also remained and was joined briefly by at least 1 Yellow-legged Gull. Routine arrivals included 100 Willow Warblers, 35 Blackcaps, 25 Garden Warblers, 20 Wheatears, 12 Yellow Wagtails, a tardy Brambling and single figure totals of many of the other expected mid-spring migrants. The predominantly offshore breeze did the seawatchers no favours, and 2 Arctic Skuas and a single Great Northern Diver were the best of their sightings.


Hoopoe - Portland Bill, 28th April 2014 © Brett Spencer Brett's Goosey Ganderings 

...and a bit of video of the Hoopoe and Woodlark:

 

 

Although the Obs garden mist-nets have been ticking over quite well with routine fare so far this spring - this month's total, for example, crept past 1300 today - oddities have been conspicuously absent, so this hitherto unseen Siberian Chiffchaff was a welcome turn-up in a net this morning:


And to round off, this Whinchat was an in-hand first for the season (photos © Martin Cade: