8th September

This autumn's ratio of rare/scarce migrants to more routine fare was already something to be envied and the events of today served only to improve it, with first a Wryneck showing up at Culverwell before a Booted Warbler was discovered in the Crown Estate Field; with a back-up cast that included singles of Osprey (over Verne Common) and Marsh Harrier (over the Bill) overhead, the autumn's first Merlin at the Bill, 2 Little Stints at Ferrybridge and another 150 Balearic Shearwaters through/lingering offshore there was plenty to commend. The common migrant situation was far less positive, with variety not too bad but numbers far below what might be expected in mid-September, to the extent that visible passage of hirundines was almost non-existent and the likes of totals of just 22 Yellow Wagtails, 15 Grey Wagtails and 2 Tree Pipits overhead at the Bill were frankly pitiful for seemingly perfect conditions. With the night sky dominated by an enormous full moon a worthwhile arrival on the ground was never likely, so the scatter of 4 Reed Warblers, 2 Pied Flycatchers, 2 Spotted Flycatchers, a Yellow-legged Gull and a Grasshopper Warbler amongst not a great deal else were welcome. With the exception of the Balearic Shearwaters and some good gatherings of gulls the sea was quiet, with 2 Arctic Skuas and a Little Gull the best off the Bill.

The Booted Warbler was a nice little event: at midday we were actually closing the Crown Estate Field nets having had little reward all morning when on getting to one in a low weedy crop a small, ghostly-pale warbler flushed out from close to the net; a judicious walk through the crop saw it fly out into an adjacent hedge where the ID as a likely Booted Warbler became more obvious:

A few more hands were gathered from the Obs and before long the bird had been chivvied into the mist-net it had first been found beside. In the hand it seemed both in appearance and biometrics to conform in every way to Booted, with the possibility of Sykes's looking to be safely eliminated. On release in the Obs Quarry it showed remarkably well for a while and continued to pop up quite regularly for the arriving listers before eventually leaving the quarry and being lost:

And some of the finer details in the hand. Of esoteric interest, we weren't entirely certain what age the bird was: the presence of some prominent fault bars on some of the middle tail feathers invited hasty categorization as a youngster (although there are other possible explanations for this and, besides, the fault bars didn't extent across the whole tail) but on close examination some feathers in tracts such as the tertials, the smaller wing coverts and the tail looked to be unexpectedly heavily worn for a youngster and there was some sort of strange moult activity going on in the inner secondaries; in contrast to all this, the primaries looked to be way too fresh for it to be an adult. So, it's probably best left unaged until we've received some more informed input on this subject:

This was Portland's fifth Booted Warbler but the first for 23 years; the previous records were of singles in the Obs garden and an adjacent weedy field on 22nd-23rd September 1980, in the Obs Quarry Field and Pulpit bushes on 13th September 1987, at Barleycrates Lane on 13th-14th September 1999 and in the hut fields and Obs garden on 15th-19th August 2002 © Martin Cade:

Some more random migrant action from the day - Marsh Harrier, Pied Flycatcher, Grey Wagtail and Wryneck at the Bill © Martin Cade...

...and the Little Stints at Ferrybridge © Pete Saunders: