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3rd November

With a northeasterly airflow firmly established and the news services dropping juicy morsels by the minute, being a rarity-seeking birder on the island today had something of the feel of being a particle physicist searching for dark matter - you knew it was there but you just couldn't detect it. Sadly, whatever it was remained undetected all day, with a trapped Mealy Redpoll, an overflying party of 9 Barnacle Geese, a passing Hen Harrier and the lingering Snow Bunting as good as it got on the scarcity front. At a local level, passing waterfowl were entertaining with 15 Brent Geese, 11 Pintail, 5 Teal, 2 Wigeon, a Mallard and a Red-breasted Merganser all relatively high-value birds amongst the 300 Mediterranean Gulls, 100 Common Gulls, 30 Common Scoter and 19 Cormorants also logged on the sea. Overhead passage didn't reach the levels of some recent days, with 9700 Wood Pigeons, 585 Stock Doves, 410 Jackdaws, 270 Chaffinches, 17 Redwings, 14 Fieldfares, 14 Greenfinches, 7 Siskins, 3 Lapwings and a single Golden Plover the bulk of the tally over the Bill. Grounded arrivals remained thinly spread, with 2 Short-eared Owls (and the remains of another recently predated individual) and singles of Wheatear, Dartford Warbler and Firecrest the best of it amongst the few Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs and Goldcrests at the Bill.

For us, the Mealy Redpoll was a very exciting bird: we had a redpoll lure deployed beside one of the  mist-nets in the Crown Estate Field and on doing a round of the nets we flushed the bird at point blank range from some weeds near the net and as it fluttered away it looked arrestingly frosty, with gleaming white wing-bars and rump - an absolutely nailed-on Mealy just with the naked eye! Still at extremely close range it then posed rather beautifully for some photos before proving to be the easiest of birds to walk straight into a net - if only everything behaved like that © Martin Cade...




...and © John Martin:


Proper wild Barnacle Geese in full migratory flight high over the Bill - none of this goose dross that circulates around Dorset for most of the rest of the year © Nick Hopper:


We're sure there must be the odd other 'ordinary' Wheatear left in Britain but you get the feel from the rarity news that we must have been very unlucky that today's bird wasn't either a Desert or an Isabelline © John Martin:


The Bill Snow Bunting and one of quite a few Clouded Yellows still about there © John Martin:



The Red-headed Chestnut tally advances to 7 in the last four nights with another single last night at the Obs; otherwise, migrant moth numbers continue to drop as the nights get progressively windier and chillier

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— Portland Bird Observatory (@portlandbirdobs.bsky.social) November 3, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Annie Irving
@sconzani.bsky.social
There was some discussion amongst birders about the Wheatear that popped up at the end of my little Snow bunting video. I've only ever seen Northern wheatear so can't be sure but she looks like a Northern female to me. (And if only that second shot had been sharp!)
Annie Irving @sconzani.bsky.social
· 7h
The Snow bunting at Portland Bill earlier, in a brisk very chilly wind. Do watch to the end when a little avian surprise pops up!