A deafening silence overhead at dawn - at a juncture when Tree Pipits and Yellow Wagtails ought to be filling the sky - brought a rapid realisation that passerine passage hadn't perked up today; the sea fared almost as poorly with a gradual easing of the wind strength seeing to it that passage there dwindled away quite quickly. The pick of the land sightings at the Bill were singles of
Grasshopper Warbler and
Pied Flycatcher on the ground and a measly 5
Yellow Wagtails, 4
Tree Pipits and a
Merlin overhead; another 2
Pied Flycatchers were at Thumb Lane and the long-staying
Marsh Harrier was still about - today largely in the Barleycrates Lane/Weston area. Wader turn-over looked to have ground to a halt, with little change in numbers or variety at Ferrybridge. A steady post-dawn movement of 145
Mediterranean Gulls, 120
Manx Shearwater, 65
Kittiwakes and 41
Balearic Shearwater evident off the Bill wasn't sustained and a single
Sooty Shearwater through there in the evening was the only other sea sighting of note.
Two species we should have been seeing and hearing so much more of today - Tree Pipit © Martin Cade and Yellow Wagtail:
This juvenile Yellow Wagtail is No.65 on the list of species I have ringed at Culverwell, small copse about 300 metres north of Portland bird obs, since I started in November 2018. @portlandbirdobs.bsky.social
#birdringing
[image or embed]
— Mark Cutts (@slashercutts.bsky.social) Aug 26, 2024 at 11:22
This flagged Sandwich Tern was at Ferrybridge yesterday - thanks to Steve Dodd for letting us know so promptly that it was ringed as a chick at Cemlyn Bay, Anglesey, on 20th June 2022; later that summer - between 15th and 25th July - it wandered to the River Clywd, Formby and Walney before returning to the River Clywd, but this Ferrybridge sighting is the first since then © Pete Saunders:
Still the most pitiful of rewards on the ringing front: just 10 bird ringed - and 3 of those weren't even summer migrants! - between the Obs, the Crown Estate Field and Culverwell
[image or embed]
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) Aug 27, 2024 at 0:18
