The migrant drought continued, at least on the ground, with no more than low single figure totals of a few routines at the Bill, where the still-present wintering Firecrest provided the best of the interest. Fortunately, it was a little busier overhead with a Ring Ouzel the pick of passage along West Cliffs where Meadow Pipits and Linnets also trickled through all morning. The sea provided the day's highest numbers, with upwards of 500 Manx Shearwaters joining the large feeding flock of gulls off the Bill; a lingering Sooty Shearwater and the year's first Great Skua provided the best of the quality there, with 34 Sandwich Terns, 30 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 16 Red-throated Divers, 10 Common Scoter and a Puffin among the day's other loggings.
Red sky in the morning and all that: the rather lovely first sunrise of British Summer Time certainly belied what was to come, as by the afternoon it was decidedly miserable in an ever-strengthening and really cold westerly © Martin Cade:
Time will tell whether it lingers on but it was hard to escape the thought that today's Sooty Shearwater was last year's long-term spring lingerer returning for another season in the wrong end of the Atlantic:
Sooty Shearwater again with the gull flock off Portland Bill 15:15 #ukbirding #dorsetbirds
— Oli Mockridge (@yeovilbirder.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 3:29 PM
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One of the Purple Sandpipers doing its thing at the Bill tip this morning © Nick Hopper:
