The very unsettled conditions continued and did us very few favours today. A small redeeming feature was the trapping of an eastern Lesser Whitethroat in the Crown Estate Field although that wasn't a new arrival, rather a reappearance of a bird first found eight days ago that had escaped attention for most of the last week; unfortunately, a likely Radde's Warbler at Thumb Lane proved to be extremely elusive and couldn't be conclusively clinched. Most of the rest of the day's interest came from the sea, with far from comprehensive coverage producing more than 500 Kittiwakes, 10 Balearic Shearwaters, 3 Sooty Shearwaters, 3 Manx Shearwaters and singles of Red-throated Diver, Pomarine Skua, Arctic Skua and Arctic Tern through off the Bill. Overhead passage was almost non-existent and 3 Merlins, 3 Ring Ouzels and a Firecrest were the best that could be mustered on the ground around the southern half of the island.
Lab work will no doubt come up a definitive answer and the smart money will always be on it being a blythi Siberian bird but the Lesser Whitethroat did look to have one or two features worth debating before that answer's known © Martin Cade:
