Hard work in blazing sun and increasing heat today - especially as there didn't seem to be a lot about to make the toil worthwhile. Decent numbers of Swifts - including at least 100 over the Bill - passed through overhead, but amongst the passerines only Wheatear managed a double figure total at the Bill; a Redstart dropped in at Sweethill and a Knot was new at Ferrybridge but there was little else of note amongst the thin scatter of other migrants. Three Balearics and a single Manx Shearwater were the highlights from some very slow seawatching.
Redstart © Debby Saunders...
...and Knot © Pete Saunders were the best of today's migrants:
We've touched on this before what a great little crossroads Ferrybridge is right in the midst of all manner of migrant wader comings and goings: this Ringed Plover that was there yesterday was ringed as a large nestling on 28 May this year at Wilhelminapolder in the southwest Netherlands; we still get really excited by the fact that other ring-readings there have shown us that, for example, amongst the 100 or so Ringed Plovers on the mud at Ferrybridge during August there might be birds present that hatched in nests at Ferrybridge itself but also in other places as far apart as a glacier-carved valley in Arctic Canada and a polder in the Netherlands - isn't that fantastic? Thanks Sander Lilipaly for being so prompt with the ringing details of yesterday's bird © Pete Saunders:
