2nd June

The day's high point was probably the Great Spotted Cuckoo successfully chalking up its third full week in residence; however, it was also nice to see plenty of Swifts in the air throughout the morning - 300 were counted at one time at the Bill - and the continuing presence of at least 2 Common Cuckoos at the Bill was a welcome reminder of bygone times. New arrivals at the Bill consisted of just a Hobby, a Blackcap (a failed breeder rather than a tardy migrant) and a Spotted Flycatcher; 2 Chiffchaffs and a Willow Warbler also lingered on there and an Arctic Skua passed by on the sea.

Immigrant moth interest again centred on the large arrival of Diamond-back Moths: 1140 were caught overnight in the five traps run at the Obs and 102 made it into a single trap at the Grove; numbers by day were still high although by the evening when we had a kick around several fields at the Bill there were appreciably fewer about than at the same time yesterday. Although the numbers logged over the last couple of days are very high they aren't actually unprecedented at the Obs, where our record single night  total in the traps was c3500 on 26th July 2006.



Storm Petrel - 31st May 2016 © Martin Cade

...we'd quite forgotten that we took a quick bit of phone-video of this bird that was mist-netted at the Bill a couple of nights ago during our second trapping attempt of the season; it would seem that the petrels aren't yet about in any numbers since it took more than three hours over the two sessions before this bird was lured in.

And from today a sound that's very rarely heard at the Bill these days - a singing Cuckoo: