28th June

Howlingly windy conditions made for difficult birding today and, aside from a Bee-eater heard calling high over Barleycrates Lane, there were few rewards on offer for those that took the trouble. The sea was an obvious first port of call but a few Manx and 2 Balearic Shearwaters were all that could be mustered from plenty of looking. The only reports from the land were of 3 Shelduck, 2 Dunlin and a Sanderling at Ferrybridge.

As might be expected at this time of year, waders have provided most of what little interest there's been on the land: the likes of Common Sandpiper, Curlew, Whimbrel and Redshank have begun to feature on both the nocmig recordings and daytime sightings sheet, with this Sanderling a new arrival at Ferrybridge today © Pete Saunders:


The presence of a summer gull flock off the Bill is a relatively recent phenomenon and one that still retains some novelty value; at its closest the feeding frenzy is easy enough to work through but it's more usual for the flock to remain several hundred metres or more offshore which makes the detection of oddities a lot more challenging © Martin Cade: