12th August

Not that a day can have several halves but today was certainly full on contrasts, what with its drippingly damp, foggy start, its sunny but stickily humid afternoon and its bright, briskly breezy evening. Bird-wise, there was little to commend, with a lone Grasshopper Warbler the best of a woefully low tally of common migrants at the Bill; Ferrybridge was considerably busier including further increases to 277 Ringed Plovers and 14 Sanderling

This odd, buffy-toned Dunlin has been at Ferrybridge for a couple of days now; we're guessing it's melanin-deficient in some way - there's probably a correct term for this but we haven't looked it up - but in the soft light this evening it cut a subtly pretty figure amongst its still very contrasty summer-plumaged congeners © Martin Cade: