Call yourself a Bird Observatory? - just at the moment we're verging on incurring the scrutiny of Trading Standards for purporting to be some sort of ornithological hotspot when by just about every metric it's blindingly obvious we're falling way short of the mark. In truth - although only by dint of a lot of legwork and gawping at the sea - today did come up with fair-ish day-list even if numbers were pretty dreadful. Swallows, and to a lesser extent House Martins, were again arriving in decent supply but on the ground none of the routine migrants managed even a double figure total at the Bill where there were no surprises amongst what little could be found; elsewhere, a Black Redstart at Ferrybridge was about as good as it got. In a freshening southeasterly the sea should have provide salvation but it too was far quieter than expected, with combined Bill/Chesil totals that included 130 Bar-tailed Godwits, 100 Arctic/commic Terns, 84 Common Scoter, 80 Whimbrel, 7 Red-throated Divers, 4 Arctic Skuas, 2 Great Northern Divers and singles of Black-throated Diver, Red-breasted Merganser and Great Skua.
Six and a half minutes on the penultimate leg of the long, long flight from Mauritania to the Netherlands. Such is the longevity of waders, we're guessing that quite a few of the birds in this mixed flock of Bar-tailed Godwits and Whimbrel will have taken the short-cut over Chesil and Portland Harbour in multiple previous springs so they'd know it isn't an insurmountable barrier; however, they rarely seem to take it lightly and need a fair bit of psyching themselves up - and an awful lot of gaining height - to get the job done. Still a marvel every time we see this © Martin Cade:
