13th July

Nagging blustery westerlies persisted and ensured it was the sea that got most of the day's attention. Yellow-legged Gulls again provided much of the interest, with the day's peak count of 29 at the Bill during the evening constituting an island record total but also believed to underestimate the numbers present not only at that moment but also over the day as a whole; at least 45 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 40 Mediterranean Gulls also lingered offshore, whilst 8 Common Scoter, 4 Balearic Shearwaters, 2 Manx Shearwaters and 2 Arctic Skuas passed by on the sea. Another steady trickle of Sand Martins saw 50 logged leaving from the Bill, along with 2 Swifts and a House Martin. Five Common Sandpipers were also at the Bill, with another 2 at Ferrybridge along with 8 Dunlin and a Redshank.

Wader interest today included the Common Sandpipers at the Bill...

...whilst the Ferrybridge Oystercatchers continue to be ultra-attentive to their youngsters © Pete Saunders:

The Yellow-legged Gull influx over the last few days has been really impressive although tricky to accurately quantify - the main issues being the constant movement within the melee of gulls feeding offshore, along with the constant movement of birds to and from the flock. Here's a little bit of video of the scene below Culverwell late this evening when there was a loafing group of gulls in the horse fields taking a break from feeding and at the same time a much larger melee a few hundred metres off East Cliffs - we can see eight birds amongst the settled flock, whilst in the background there are a whole lot more amongst the feeding flock. The most we managed in a single scan just after we shot this video was 29 but this was very much a bare minimum and it wouldn't surprise us if the true total wasn't quite a bit higher © Martin Cade: