10th October

Anyone paying attention to the island's rather pitiful grounded migrant totals in recent weeks might be forgiven for imagining there's been little coverage: whilst it's true that there have been far fewer observers than usual throughout the autumn, it's also the case that those that have been making an effort have been relentless in trying to cover as much ground as possible but, by and large, have been singularly unrewarded - our day will come but, at least at the moment, the vectors of both routine migration and vagrancy haven't been aligned in our favour. Today saw most of the conventional locations scrutinized pretty thoroughly, with the only real rewards uncovered being 3 single Yellow-browed Warblers and another Siberian Lesser Whitethroat; the ever reliable Rosy Starling at Easton lingered on for another day to provide a little more gloss to proceedings. Commoner migrants - at least on the ground - were restricted to the odd pockets of Chiffchaffs here and there and 4 Woodlarks at spots around the north of the island but precious little else. Overhead passage entertained for a while early in the morning when totals of note included 175 Chaffinches over the Bill; oddities included 3 Woodlarks over Cheyne, single Merlins there and at the Bill and two flocks of Crossbills over the north of the island.

The Siberian Lesser Whitethroat was trapped at Culverwell © Erin Taylor: