11th June

Quite how Portland avoided getting a much-needed drenching during the last 24 hours was a bit of mystery, but despite being surrounded at times by slow-moving downpours the island remained resolutely dry even if it was blasted by a stiff easterly all day. Birding was hard work and for most part unproductive, with best of it being singles of Yellow-legged Gull and Spotted Flycatcher at the Bill, a Balearic Shearwater through on the sea there and a lone Sanderling at Ferrybridge.

It won't be long before the larophiles are sent into rapture by the arrival of this year's crop of juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls but in the meanwhile the occasional sub-adult's popping up to relieve their pent-up expectation; this one dropped in below Culverwell for a while this morning © Keith Pritchard:


Not having Rain Man-esque recall of even our own records we were left puzzling over whether or not we'd actually ever previously seen a Fulmar in Portland Harbour after one had scooted past while we were milling around at Ferrybridge this evening; we're not going to trouble to look up the facts right now save to make the observation that in recent years they're certainly no more than extremely infrequent visitors to the harbour © Martin Cade: