Unlike yesterday, there were no great expectations for today's birding prospects in a 40mph northwesterly and the day's list struggled to get beyond the entirely routine. Totals from around the Bill included 6 Wheatears, 2 Black Redstarts and 2 Firecrests, with additional overhead counts of 200 Wood Pigeons, 2 Golden Plover, 2 Siskin and a single Brambling.
Yesterday's Cirl Bunting gives us an opportunity to alert folk to a Dorset-wide colour-ringing project initiated by Luke Phillips. We already know from ordinary metal-ringing that their recolonisation of the Dorset coast has resulted in some interesting movements - a nestling from the east Cornwall/west Devon population has turned up at West Bexington and there's been another movement between Littlesea, Weymouth, and Durlston; frustratingly, further metal-ringed birds have been seen at other sites but it's not proved possible to read their ring numbers in the field. Luke's project aims to shed further light on what's afoot with the Cirls, with the use of colour-rings enabling individual birds to be more easily identified in the field. Our bird is the sixth to be colour-ringed in the county so far this summer and autumn so keep an eye out - yesterday afternoon Jodie stumbled across our bird that had already moved hundreds of metres away from the Crown Estate Field where it had been trapped and her photo shows how relatively easily the rings can be seen/read in the field. Please report any sightings to Luke lukephillips0988@hotmail.com or via CR Birding © Joe Stockwell, Martin Cade and Jodie Henderson:
