1st May

A Night Heron has more than enough pedigree to save any lacklustre day and when the circumstances of its occurrence are as peculiar as those of the bird that showed up at the Bill today then we were even more fortunate: first seen mid-morning arriving in off the sea at the Bill tip, it proceeded to linger in full view on the rocky shore along East Cliffs until early evening when it eventually upped and departed high to the east. By most other measures the day was indeed a disappointment, with no more than the smallest arrival of grounded migrants, just a light passage of diurnal arrivals and, by yesterday's standards, the slowest of seawatches. A Pied Flycatcher and a Black Redstart were the pick of the newcomers at the Bill, where a handful of Yellow Wagtails, Whinchats, Wheatears and Willow Warblers made up the bulk of the numbers, whilst a Grey Plover and a Yellow-legged Gull were the best of the arrivals at Ferrybridge. Overhead, an Osprey through at Easton and 2 Hobbys through at the Bill compensated for the again slow pace of Swift and hirundine passage. A last gasp 3 Pomarine Skuas saved the day for the Bill seawatchers who had earlier endured long hours for little more than 3 Little Gulls, a Great Crested Grebe and a Great Skua; a few waders and more small gulls were also still moving there and off Chesil.

Butterfly immigration was again evident during the evening when several Red Admirals were watched arriving in off the sea at Chesil and a number of presumably earlier arrivals - along with a single Painted Lady - were basking in the last of the sun on the walls of the Chesil Centre.

The Night Heron put on an unexpectedly good show - on one occasion just after it made first landfall it even landed right on top of Pulpit Rock! With four records in the 14 years between 1987 and 2001 this species had looked like it might become a tolerably regular scarcity here but it's subsequently taken 24 years for another to appear; the previous records fell between extreme dates of 4th April and 24th June with two of them, like today's occurrence, involving birds actually watched coming in off the sea © Martin Cade:


Wheatears have been one of the most conspicuous migrants in recent days; there are still a few presumed British breeders passing through but big, richly-coloured Greenland/Iceland breeders are very much to the fore © Mark Williams (in field) and Martin Cade (in hand):



And from the sublime to the ridiculous: the female Mandarin surfaced again this evening when it dropped in on a garden pond at Sweethill © Nick Stantiford:


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