Apart from a sudden and rather torrential downpour at midday the rain remained mostly in the channel. The looming storm clouds that slipped between us and the continent had the fortuitous effect of pushing the passing seabirds shoreward and as such the Balearic Shearwater tally for the morning reached 239, accompanied by double figures of Manx Shearwater, Common Scoter, Kittiwake and Mediterranean Gulls. The amassed gull flock, including a pair of Yellow-legged Gulls, attracted the interests of two passing Arctic Skuas although they did not linger for long. On the land the calming of the wind saw a trickle of migrants with the first double figure count of Tree Pipits, two Pied Flycatchers (dispersed across the island), 19 Wheatears and a Grasshopper Warbler in Culverwell.
The wader-fest at Ferrybridge continued to gather steam with a maximum flock of 20 Knot, triple figures of Ringed Plovers and Dunlin and the lingering Grey Phalarope.
Amongst the flock of Ringed Plovers at Ferrybridge the eagle-eyed watchers spotted a colour-ringed individual that it transpires was originally ringed on 7th July 2017 at Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada - close to the northwestern limit of the species' breeding range. Of 93 birds ringed at this site 10 have been re-sighted on migration of which 4 were in the UK - 2 of these have been at Ferrybridge (the previous record being in 2014). We couldn't be more grateful to our dedicated local birders for this kind of brilliant information © Pete Saunders:
The co-ordinator of this ringing project, Don-Jean Léandri-Breton, kindly passed Pete and Debby Saunders an aerial photograph of the bird's breeding site in the Canadian high arctic and a link to a paper documenting certain aspects of the annual migration cycle of this population of Ringed Plovers: Seasonal variation in migration strategies used to cross ecological barriers in a nearctic migrant wintering in Africa
The local butterflies don't seem to have been put off by the recent spate of showers and wind, although the female of this Common Blue pair appears to be much smaller this is evidently typical of a second generation. The Painted Lady is so fresh its not too greater stretch to suppose it may have hatched here on the island © Ken Dolbear:
