2nd May

Really quite depressing outcomes from today's proceedings, with the transition to more unsettled conditions - it even rained for a couple of hours during the afternoon - producing the poorest of returns on all fronts. The fact that just 8 migrants were trapped and ringed at our three trapping sites at the Bill in outwardly perfect mist-netting conditions spoke volumes for the paucity of new arrivals on the ground, with only ones or twos of Whinchat, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher providing any interest for the fieldworkers in the wider area. The inexorable progress through the morning of a rain band arriving off the Channel likely stopped diurnal passage, with a single Hobby over Chesil after the rain had cleared the only migrant of note overhead. The sea was crushingly duff during the morning when 2 Arctic Skuas provided the only interest off the Bill; a flurry of activity after the rain saw a small movement of Manx Shearwaters develop and 21 Bar-tailed Godwits and 4 Whimbrel pass over Chesil.