14th May

With a blasting easterly and crystal-clear skies the order of the day a fall of tardy migrants was never on the cards but there was still plenty of movement afoot. Waders featured most strongly, with post-dawn and pre-dusk watches at Chesil coming up with 143 Sanderling, 19 Grey Plovers, 10 Knot, 9 Bar-tailed Godwits, 9 Turnstone, 6 Whimbrel and 6 Dunlin - all of which headed away east over Portland Harbour; 6 more Whimbrel and 3 more Grey Plover were at the Bill, whilst at least 9 Sanderling were amongst the handful of birds that dropped in at Ferrybridge. Visible passage elsewhere included a pretty steady throughput of hirundines and Swifts along West Cliffs. Grounded migrants were few and far between but did include an ater Coal Tit that popped up briefly during the afternoon at the Bill.

The majority of the day's waders were active migrants, with only a few like this Sanderling at Ferrybridge actually dropping in © Martin Cade:


This flock of mixed waders high overhead were rather typical of the Chesil action under clear skies at this time of year: high enough to be only just resolvable with the naked eye, even binoculars don't get you much beyond the realisation that there's a mixture of species...


...'scope views - or a telephoto lens in this case - are necessary to get much further; we made it 7 Grey Plover, 6 Knot, 5 Barwits and 2 Whimbrel (the views were a bit better in the 'scope!) © Martin Cade:



Yesterday's Nightingale that we didn't get round to last evening:



And also rather belatedly, a couple of recordings from Nick Hopper's overnighter on 10th/11th May: