17th June

For the second time this week a whole day passed with no reports of the Great Spotted Cuckoo (...there were quite a few visitors looking, at least through the morning). Although a succession of heavy showers did work their way across from the mainland there was plenty of pleasant sunshine in between when the Bill area at least was well-worked: the presumably summering Short-eared Owl was about once again, 2 Reed Warbler and a Blackcap were new on the ground, 60 Swifts and a Curlew passed through overhead and 200 Manx Shearwaters (including at least 80 feeding offshore), 38 Common Scoter, 7 commic terns and 5 Sandwich Terns were logged by the seawatchers.

The Diamond-back Moth tally dropped still further, with just 10 caught overnight in the Obs garden moth-traps; a single Silver Y was the only other immigrant trapped there.



Short-eared Owl and West Cliffs sunset - Portland Bill, 17th June 2016 © Simon Kidner (SEOwl) and Martin Cade (sunset)

And when we downloaded yesterday's cuckoo videos from the camera we realised we'd forgotten about a few little clips of the Obs Quarry Little Owls that we'd taken shortly after the young were first visible at the end of May; there's only one youngster visible in this sequence but we're told that two were seen at times: