4th January

A pleasantly benign couple of hours after dawn were a wholly unrepresentative prelude to what followed as rain set in that was heavy and continuous enough to cause unprecedented flooding across the Crown Estate Field and Bill Road as well as a number of other spots around the island. The first Red-necked Grebe of the winter in Portland Harbour was a nice highlight from the early fieldwork, with more routine fare coming in the form of 9 Red-throated Divers through off the Bill, 15 Common Scoter still settled offshore there and 3 Turnstones and 2 Purple Sandpipers on the shore at the Bill tip.