diver sp 1w, Manx Shearwater c100etc, Sooty Shearwater 1 flew east twice during the day but no sign of it lingering within visible range, Whimbrel 1e, Great Skua 1e, Arctic Skua 2e, Little Gull 1w, Glaucous Gull 1etc, Swallow 23n, Sand Martin 1n, Reed Warbler 1, Serin 1 briefly at the Obs.
Portland Port
Bee-eater 1 heard calling overhead.
Ferrybridge
Dunlin 16, Sanderling 25.
It was pleasing to finally get a decent view of a/the Glaucous Gull after suspecting one nearly a month ago that had to be let go after look-alike singles of both Glaucous and Iceland turned up in Weymouth in subsequent days and then missing out on the long range views of the bird a fortnight ago that showed well at West Bexington the next day. Today's bird first appeared as a distant white-winged gull amongst the offshore gull flock before later coming ashore and settling for a short while in the East Cliff fields below Culverwell where its identity was immediately apparent:
We strongly suspect all these records relate to the same individual; the bird on 27th and 28th April immediately looked enormous even if that bulk maybe isn't conveyed in our very long-range photos of it but these do show, for example, the conspicuously blotchy underparts that were also apparent on the photos of the West Bexington bird on 13th May and were very obvious on today's bird (the local Iceland Gull was in similar plumage but had far less mottling about its underparts) © Martin Cade:
