The Rose-coloured Starling amongst a pre-roost gathering of Starlings atop St Georges Church at Weston © Martin Cade:
6th September
A pretty crushingly duff day for common migrants with the light southeasterly delivering far less than might have been hoped and certainly would have been the case a few decades ago - OK everyone, you just carry on like normal and completely ignore the ecological breakdown that's blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain. A small redeeming feature was a steady departure of 160 Yellow Wagtails and an equally steady although unquantified passage of hirundines (along with a single late Swift); grounded arrivals were pathetically few and far between and didn't include anything more of consequence than a Merlin and a White Wagtail at the Bill, a Pied Flycatcher at Avalanche Road and a couple of random single Yellow-legged Gulls; for the travelling listers, the Rose-coloured Starling meted out as much frustration as it did relief as it ranged around the Weston housing estates. In terms of variety if not quantity the sea was a constant purveyor of interest, with 30 Sandwich Terns, 28 Manx Shearwaters, 27 Balearic Shearwaters, 10 Dunlin, 8 Sanderling, 7 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Arctic Skuas and a Sooty Shearwater amongst others logged at the Bill.
