When it takes more than half an hour to register the first entry on the day-sheet and two hours before the first migrant's ringed at the Obs you know the portents for the day aren't great - and, with a few exceptions, so it proved. The most notable exception was a very strong passage of
hirundines with the first decent pulse of
Swifts tagging along
- seemingly funneled in quantity along the leading edge of an almost stationary Channel-wide band of rain only a few miles to the the west of the island - whilst in view of the lack of quantity on the ground a scatter of 6
Ring Ouzels and 60
Wheatears was a surprise. Also on the ground, the year's first
Spotted Flycatcher was an on-cue arrival at the Grove, with 3
Common Sandpipers, the first 2
Purple Sandpipers for several weeks and a
Hobby also logged. The block of rain to the west wasn't looked on favourably by the seawatchers so their return of 30
Bar-tailed Godwits, 22
Whimbrel, 12
Dunlin, 9
Shelducks, 2
Red-throated Divers and a
Pomarine Skua through off the Bill perhaps slightly exceeded expectations.
Ring Ouzel and Hobby in the Strips at the Bill this morning © Martin Cade:
Passage of the small waders hasn't really got going yet but these three Sanderling were new arrivals along the Hamm Beach shore this morning © Pete Saunders:
It's looking like a good many of the Ferrybridge Little Terns are back in the vicinity even if they're not yet firmly settled in the breeding colony...
...this Common Seal's also been about in the vicinity of the colony © John Dadds:
