Whilst today saw continued blustery conditions, there were far fewer rewards on the sea, with only 18 Balearic Shearwaters, 10 Common Scoter, 8 Manx Shearwater, 2 Arctic Skua, 1 Arctic Tern and a Grey Phalarope past the Bill. On the land, Wheatears were up slightly with 18 in the relative shelter along the East Cliffs, whilst a trickle of Swallows and Sand Martins and a couple of Grey Wagtails constituted the only perceptible movement overhead. A Glossy Ibis made a very typical all too brief appearance at Ferrybridge, with a Sunfish off the East Cliffs to round off the day's only other oddities.
After yesterday's flurry of Storm Petrels off the Bill, it seems a good time to look back on this year's ringing efforts and summarize what was an excellent year for interactions with this enigmatic seabird. In fact, 2025 marked the second best year for number of new birds ringed at 66, with 121 in 1994 the only other higher annual total. So far, 12 Portland-ringed birds have been resighted elsewhere this year, with 9 from Alderney, 2 from Skokholm and 1 from Ireland. The majority of these were birds ringed this year (with 6 from 2025, 1 from 2024, 2 from 2023, 2 from 2022 and 1 from 2019), with two birds in particular making remarkably quick turnarounds, with a 24-hour recovery to Skokholm and a 5-day recovery to Ireland, a minimum of 280 and 440 miles respectively. Rather strangely, reverse movements from these colonies are rare events here, with the two Alderney birds caught at the Bill this year only the second and third record of a Channel Isles bird from Portland.
When combined with previous years data, there have now been 93 encounters of Portland-ringed Storm Petrels away from here, representing 12.8% of all birds ringed since 1991. The location and number of recoveries per each site can be seen on the map below, with a strong bias for the south-west and Welsh headlands and islands.
