Manx Shearwater 6e 2w
Gannet 175e in 1 hour
Common Scoter 7e
Mediterranean Gull 20
Black-headed Gull 1
Sandwich Tern 11e
Swift 29
Sand Martin 1s
Chiffchaff 1
Ferrybridge
Mute Swan 2
Dunlin 2
Sanderling 3
When we noticed the Mute Swans were unringed we wondered if they were 'outsiders' rather than Abbotsbury birds but Joe Stockwell tells us that there are currently plenty of unringed birds at the Swannery as a consequence of there not having been a full-blown swan round-up there for several years; alternatively, he also mentioned that a lot of outside birds do come to the Fleet at this time of year to moult © Pete Saunders:
It's still the in-between season for waders at Ferrybridge: the breeding Oystercatchers are busy feeding their now fledged young...
...but today there was a hint of things to come with the first few returning Sanderlings and Dunlin in residence © Pete Saunders:
To borrow from birding parlance we were completely seen off last week when Geoff Lightfoot caught Dorset's first and Britain's sixth Orange-bar Grass-veneer Chrysocrambus linetella in Weymouth - records of crippling rares of this sort don't hurt when they're miles away at, say, Dungeness but they're really painful when they involve something that's patently flown right over Portland before dropping out on the mainland. Anyway, it took a remarkably short time for our pain to be assuaged when on opened one of this morning's moth-traps there was an apparent linetella in all its glory - they might not be eye candy but they don't half look rare and interesting! We say apparent linetella because we're well aware that this little group of vagrant grass-veneers are an ID minefield and confirmation that it is linetella rather than one of the other even less likely possibilities will only come after further critical examination:
That there was clearly some odd event going on in the moth migration line was evidenced by the rest of the trap contents: conventional migrants were represented but certainly not in plenty but there was a nice selection of infrequently-trapped species present - most of which no doubt originated from across the water in France. These included several Scarce Oak Knot-horn Acrobasis tumidana which is always a good indicator species that interesting happenings are afoot...
...whilst an arrival of four White-backed Marble Hedya salicella was most unexpected; we'd had very few records ever of this relatively widespread 'inland' species until Duncan Walbridge trapped one a few nights ago at Weston - five in less than a week is unprecedented at Portland © Martin Cade:
