12th August

An overnight blast of warm easterly brought with it hope of an Aquatic Warbler or a Melodious Warbler but delivered on the passerine front as near to nothing as it was possible to get, with a Garden Warbler and 2 overflying Tree Pipits the most minor of highlights amongst the tiny arrival of Sedge and Willow Warblers on the ground at the Bill; a light passage of hirundines and a late gathering of Swifts did develop in the later warm sunshine but certainly nothing to dispel the feeling that passerine migration is currently at the lowest of ebbs. Waders continued to fare a lot better with the Ferrybridge tallies early and late in the day right up to yesterday's high levels with the addition of a Little Ringed Plover, a Redshank and a departing group of 30 Common Sandpipers, whilst a brief arrival tapped into later in the morning included 5 Knot and a Curlew Sandpiper; elsewhere, the first Golden Plover of the autumn was of note at the Bill. The sea continued to tick over, with 13 Balearic Shearwaters, 3 Teal and a Great Skua the pick from the morning watches at the Bill.

A very juvenile Ringed Plover and a juvenile Little Ringed Plover at Ferrybridge this evening © Martin Cade:

Ringed Plovers - including this little flock leaving to the south - accounted for most of the evening's departing waders at Ferrybridge © Martin Cade:

Although we only managed a hugely distant record shot of it in the split second before it disappeared behind the Bill lighthouse, this leucistic Gannet with the black wing-tips replaced by hardly more than a ghosting of pale grey is a bird worth looking out for/tracking at nearby seawatch headlands; we saw what looked to be a near-identical individual - the same one? - a few years back (there is a photo of it somewhere on the blog that we couldn't lay our hands on that in a quick search this evening) but can't recollect having heard of it being seen elsewhere in the meanwhile © Martin Cade:

Despite seemingly promising conditions the moths haven't been a great deal better than the birds, with migrant numbers far lower than we've grown accustomed to at this time of year. However, a nice highlight from the Obs traps last night was this apparent Golden-rod Pug - we don't know this species but this one appears to be a dead-ringer for the book illustrations/photographs. We hadn't appreciated until we checked that Golden-rod Pug is a considerable Dorset rarity, with just three records mentioned on the county moth website; we are aware of another record that's also the only previous Portland record of one found at Cheyne Weare by a visiting moth-trapper but it would appear this report hasn't made it into the county database © Martin Cade: