Two Clouded Yellows and several Red Admirals were at the Bill, where the first Green-veined Whites of the year were also on the wing.
Common Cranes - Southwell and the Grove, 20th April 2015 © Pete Saunders (close over Southwell) and Martin Cade (distant over the Grove)
...and finally a couple of images posted for a bit of fun - we defy anyone to either guess the species or to have guessed that we were actually seawatching at the time they were taken. When you're used to conventional seawatching at the Bill, the lure of events that transpire at Chesil continue to drag us down there of an evening - the light and views are invariably rubbish but the spectacle is just so unlike anything you're used to that it remains peculiarly compelling:
The top image is of a party of Bar-tailed Godwits passing Wyke Church and the second of an Arctic Skua passing the communication mast at the top of Wyke Regis. This evening we were watching from the 'Checkpoint' halfway between Chesil Cove and Ferrybridge so the little specks that are the birds in these photos were a mile and a half or more from our viewpoint. Pretty well everything we saw through the evening didn't bother with going round the Bill but came straight at us from the middle of Lyme Bay, veered off west for a mile or so and then towered up hundreds of metres before crossing Chesil and Wyke Regis at great speed before dropping down into Weymouth Bay.
...and finally a couple of images posted for a bit of fun - we defy anyone to either guess the species or to have guessed that we were actually seawatching at the time they were taken. When you're used to conventional seawatching at the Bill, the lure of events that transpire at Chesil continue to drag us down there of an evening - the light and views are invariably rubbish but the spectacle is just so unlike anything you're used to that it remains peculiarly compelling:
The top image is of a party of Bar-tailed Godwits passing Wyke Church and the second of an Arctic Skua passing the communication mast at the top of Wyke Regis. This evening we were watching from the 'Checkpoint' halfway between Chesil Cove and Ferrybridge so the little specks that are the birds in these photos were a mile and a half or more from our viewpoint. Pretty well everything we saw through the evening didn't bother with going round the Bill but came straight at us from the middle of Lyme Bay, veered off west for a mile or so and then towered up hundreds of metres before crossing Chesil and Wyke Regis at great speed before dropping down into Weymouth Bay.