Something of a summer seawatch nadir today, with not a single shearwater logged by anyone who gave the Bill a look; that wasn't to say the sea was entirely without interest since 4 more Storm Petrels were sound-lured and trapped at the Bill tip during the small hours of morning, when overflying singles of Redshank and Common Sandpiper represented the day's only wader interest. A few more departing Swifts and Swallows provided the only migrant interest on the land.
It's looking like we were being slightly unduly pessimistic a few days ago when we posed the question as to why Storm Petrels have declined so much in local waters: quite apart from them getting harder to come by in recent years, none have been logged on seawatches so far this summer and for a while we were drawing as many blanks as we were nights with catches during our nocturnal efforts to sound-lure them; however, the last two attempts at the latter have been marginally more successful, with five trapped three nights ago and another four last night - taking the total to 13 birds ringed this summer. In case readers are wondering why a down jacket and beanie were dress code for a mid-summer night, that's because it was b****y freezing down at the Bill last night - heatwave, what heatwave? © Martin Cade:
Migrant moth interest continues to ebb away but this is the season when nice local specials like Downland Case-bearer ensure there's still plenty of other interest in the moth-traps
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 12:37 PM
[image or embed]
There are records of Essex Skipper for Portland but all the targeted searches for them that we've ever heard of have drawn a blank so they must be genuinely few and far between here - this one beside the beach road last evening is the first we've ever seen on the island
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 12:07 PM
[image or embed]
