13th June

With the expected break down of the recent fair weather holding off until late in the afternoon there was ample opportunity for coverage today, with two nice highlights providing equally ample evidence for what can still drop in at this time of year: a crack of dawn Rosy Starling was a brief visitor to Blacknor (with a later report of one flying over at the Bill), whilst a Golden Oriole was in song for a while during the morning at Culverwell. A Reed Warbler was also of note at the Bill where 50 Common Scoter passed through on the sea. Overnight, 9 more Storm Petrels had been sound-lured and trapped at the Bill.

The overnight immigrant/dispersing moth tally at the Obs consisted of just 4 Silver Y, 3 each of Green Oak Tortrix and Rusty-dot Pearl, and 2 Diamond-back Moth.

The Golden Oriole was singing - and calling - quite well at times but afforded no more than the odd glimpse as it flashed between trees; we did get a few recordings of it, a snippet of which we've overlayed onto a bit of scene-setting video (...you probably shouldn't really say such things but it was one of those moments on an idyllically balmy morning when you think: 'Blimey, we're getting paid to do this!') © Martin Cade:

By Portland standards, we've had a pretty successful start to the Storm Petrel season with 20 birds trapped over the last couple of nights (getting paid to also get dangerously sleep-deprived might seem like a perverse thing to want to do but there's something so compelling and exciting about petrel-catching that we can't help but to keep going back for more of it). The most interesting of these was the recapture of a bird that we'd first ringed in June 2015; we've had a few subsequent year retraps in the past but never one from as long ago as three years - in all probability these records refer to wandering immatures but we've always wondered if there isn't actually a chance that Storm Petrel might breed at somewhere like West Weare where there's a wealth of seemingly suitable habitat © Martin Cade: