Something of nothing today with Pallid Swift remaining a stubborn absentee and what noteworthy arrivals there were being less than obliging: after a near-gale blew up late in the night a
Leach's Petrel passed through at Chesil Cove, whilst in the much more benign sunshine that followed neither a
Coal Tit at Thumb Lane nor a
Yellow-browed Warbler at Southwell showed for more than their finders. On the ground, the centre of the island remained busy for numbers that included several
Black Redstarts and
Firecrests, a
Dartford Warbler and a late
Yellow Wagtail; the
Wryneck lingered on at the Bill but singles of
Short-eared Owl,
Merlin,
Cetti's Warbler and a late
Whinchat were the only sightings of particular note there. The rapid improvement in conditions after dawn allowed migrants to get moving overhead, with 500
Goldfinches, 300
Starlings, 130
Linnets and 90
Skylarks through over the Bill. The offshore
Gannet flock at the Bill increased to more than 500 but movement on the sea was almost non-existent.
The Egyptian Bollworm was a nice highlight from overnight mothing although having seen this species before we were a bit too casual when trying to get a 'proper' photograph of it as opposed to this in-tube mobile phone shot: on tapping it out onto our usual photography stone it sprung to life in an instant and shot straight out of the open Obs lounge door - fortunately there weren't fridge twitchers en route from all corners of the country or we'd have been mightily unpopular! This is a moth that's been good to us: we've now had four of the 11 British records © Martin Cade:
