Always a spectacle, it was Common Scoters that dominated proceedings over the sea...
...a few Red-throated Divers were again on the move...
...and Shovelers again featured on the dabbling duck front © Martin Cade:
In fair weather and a brisk easterly the lack of even sample coverage of visible migration on West Cliffs was a serious shortcoming in the day's recording effort but maybe just reflects how much the birding scene has changing from something that was formerly for most a predominantly semi-serious data gathering exercise to what's latterly become largely a leisure activity for those seeking personal gratification from listing or posting photographs of social media. It was apparent during our seawatch at the Bill tip that the flow of inbound pipits and wagtails contained the likes of a few pigeons and Jackdaws but, sadly, these and whatever else of higher quality was mingled in processed northward along West Cliffs without ever being quantified in any meaningful way © Martin Cade:
We're forever puzzled by the status of the Brimstone butterfly at Portland. As far as we understand it - or at least this is what Good's Flora of Dorset tells us - the two larval foodplants, Buckthorn and Alder Buckthorn, are absent from the island so you'd expect the butterfly to be quite a scarcity; however, every year seems to produce a really pretty decent spread of records - this year alone we've heard of at least half a dozen sightings to which this one today in the Obs garden is the latest addition. The butterfly's a powerful flyer so are these all strays from the mainland - or even, like the one watched arriving in off the sea last year during a migration of whites, Red Admirals and Painted Ladies - immigrants from the continent, or are we overlooking a small but mobile resident population that are established on specimens of one or other of the foodplants that have escaped the attention of the botanical recorders? © Martin Cade:
