8th May

Another day of bearing witness to the ecological breakdown. Ordinarily, there'd be high hopes for a day of easterlies on this date but as the years pass those hopes are increasingly being dashed and today certainly panned out well on the debit side. The sea perhaps promised most but utterly failed to deliver, with 3 Arctic Skuas, a Grey Plover, a Curlew and 9 Oystercatchers the best that could be mustered from plenty of looking off the Bill and Chesil. The conditions were rather too nice to have expected a big arrival on the land but a paltry 9 migrants trapped and ringed at the three Bill ringing sites was a fair reflection on how poor it was everywhere, with only 2 Turtle Doves at Sweethill and 2 Redpolls and a Yellowhammer at the Bill providing any reward from all the fieldwork.