21st November

Welcome to winter = cold and migrantless. Well, it wasn't quite that bad but the writing's certainly on the wall and after the overnight passage of a cold front that introduced clearer but much chillier air today's numbers were pretty poor, with a trickle of Chaffinches, 18 Redwings, 3 Fieldfares and a Blackcap the only new arrivals at the Bill. Two Black Redstarts and singles of Merlin, Siberian Chiffchaff and Brambling were noteworthy lingerers/winterers there, with at least another 4 Black Redstarts logged elsewhere around the island; one of the Black Brants also dropped in again at Ferrybridge.

The temperature might have plunged but there were still plenty of Red Admirals and even a Clouded Yellow still on the wing at the Bill.

It's been a bumper year for additions to the Portland moth list and thanks to Neil Sherman, the Suffolk county moth recorder who was on holiday on the island during October, there's another addition to report - the Fig-leaf Skeletonizer Choreutis nemorana. On 20th October Neil found a leaf fold containing a cocoon on a small fig tree hanging over the wall of a garden near Pennsylvania Castle and the adult moth duly emerged on 3rd November. The Fig-leaf Skeletonizer is a relatively recent arrival in Britain: it was first recorded in Hyde Park, London, in 2014 and has subsequently spread in south-east England - this Portland record is the first for Dorset © Neil Sherman: