Apart from the putative Blyth's Reed W, the Serin's only been seen once this mrng - pre-6am in flight over the Obs - also a Spot Fly new there & a Sand Martin overhead + a Hobby thru at Blacknor. Manx much reduced offshore but 28 Balearics, a Bonxie & a Storm Petrel thru.
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) June 13, 2026 at 11:14 AM
Interesting acro trapped in the Crown Estate Field this mrng - suspect it's going to turn out to be a Blyth's Reed but certainly a pretty subtle one - plumage not too bad, decent biometrics, poor p4 emargination etc. No field views & no calls.
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) June 13, 2026 at 9:35 AM
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Still lots of Red-veined Darters active around the Yeolands Quarry pool this afternoon but again none actually seen egg-laying; House Martins constantly visiting the pool were presumably local breeders from the Grove housing estate
— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) June 13, 2026 at 11:18 PM
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And a bit more on the Blyth's Reed Warbler. To be truthful, we rather optimistically thought this just might be a Blyth's Reed before we even reached it in the mist-net - it was laying upside down and looked so white beneath that it really didn't look like it'd be a Reed Warbler. However, in the harsh light of blazing sunshine it was surprisingly hard to interpret the colour of the upperparts so we took a quick wing measurement that at 61mm was massively pro-Blyth's Reed...
The spanner in the works though was quickly revealed to be the utter lack of an emargination on the 4th primary of the right wing (the usual wing that a right-hander examines) that a spring Blyth's Reed should always show. At first glance the left wing wasn't a lot better although closer scrutiny showed that rather than a classic-shaped emargination on the 4th primary there was in fact a noticeable progressive narrowing of the outer web of the 4th primary that was a little more positive. With little wrong with the other biometrics we're pretty confident this is a Blyth's Reed even if the emargination issue saw to it that it wasn't the sort of bird we were happy to put straight out as 100% certain. With any luck the DNA from a couple of dislodged feathers will eventually confirm our tentative identification © Martin Cade:
