19th March
18th March
17th March
Blackcap - another on cue first for the year at the Obs pic.twitter.com/LFrC9himcJ
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 17, 2023
Dark Sword Grass from the Obs moth-traps overnight pic.twitter.com/Sk1A0jo3YZ
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 17, 2023
It's been a slow start on the ringing front so far this spring but seems finally to be getting going with the first double figure catch of the season today - daily totals as usual at:https://t.co/yhLxoQfYi8 pic.twitter.com/xVUpzmOiZr
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 17, 2023
16th March
Afternoon walk round @PortlandBirdObs and Portland Bill With @libbyamac plenty to see, including a Peregrine fly over, lots of returning Wheatears, Black Redstart and the Little Owls in the Obs quarry. pic.twitter.com/D2tWiUuCTG
— Nicolas (@NicEcology) March 16, 2023
Turns out this is a bird from Lundy, Graham - many thanks for posting the photo and thanks also to Tony Taylor for his quick reply with the ringing details: pic.twitter.com/lEw7QsDgA3
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 16, 2023
15th March
Portland Bird Obs this Sun 19th March @PortlandBirdObs is the venue for our Optics field day @opticronuk @SwarovskiOptik @hawkeoptics @VortexOpticsUK first Wheatear has arrived @DorsetWildlife @DorsetBirdClub 01225 891352 pic.twitter.com/d5xFIMnSSc
— In Focus Cotswold (@infocus_Swest) March 15, 2023
a few random snaps from around the bill this morning pic.twitter.com/2W11AkT0A9
— andy (@andy33082645) March 15, 2023
Not a bad migrant tally at the Bill so far today: c50 Wheatears, 3 CCs, 2 Fcrests, singles Sand Martin & Brambling + trickle of pipits & albas in off. pic.twitter.com/CPTSxjmQvP
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 15, 2023
14th March
13th March
12th March
The first new migrant male Firecrest of the spring at PBO @PortlandBirdObs .Hopefully the first of many after such a poor year in 2022 when only 9 were ringed. A visit for the Trustees meeting can have its benefits! Will not be long until Rosie and I return. pic.twitter.com/Zglda5ClvA
— Peter J Morgan (@PBOprof) March 12, 2023
11th March
10th March
9th March
Not before time, the first Chiffchaff of the season at the Obs pic.twitter.com/zfjZh62BNt
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) March 9, 2023
8th March
7th March
6th March
5th March
4th March
Digiscoped shot of the Hooded x Carrion Crow hybrid at Portland today @BirdGuides pic.twitter.com/b9skefBcG1
— HighbridgeBirder 🦆🦉🦅 (@HighbridgePaul) March 4, 2023
3rd March
2nd March
1st March
28th February
27th February
Just a handful of winterers making up today's dismal return: 40 Common Scoter settled off the Bill and singles of Black Redstart and Chiffchaff still about on the land.
26th February
25th February
A beautiful day yesterday spent in nature, watching my favourite Little Owls🦉💓🦉#littleowl #athenenoctua #Owl #owls #iloveowls #strigidae #birdwatching #nikon #nikonphotography #BBCWildlifePOTD #bbccountryfilemagpotd pic.twitter.com/jAi00PxQzN
— Verity Pixie Hill (@verityhill5) February 25, 2023
24th February
This afternoon at Pennsylvania Castle Woods was this Firecrest. (Video is at normal speed, then slow-motion)@PortlandBirdObs @DorsetBirdClub @BTO_Dorset pic.twitter.com/NPycqAIXMJ
— Port and Wey (@PortandWey) February 24, 2023
23rd February
22nd February
21st February
20th February
Not the easiest day for looking with misty low cloud more or less throughout and occasional mizzle blowing in the breeze, but there were a few new Stonechats in evidence today which was very welcome. Otherwise there were just a few regulars about, including 2 Black Redstarts at the Bill and 9 Black-necked Grebes and an Eider in Portland Harbour.
What with war, contagion, Tory corruption and similar concerns it's not that we haven't had other things to dwell on over the last couple of years but one matter that had occasionally nagged was pondering on just what that Lesser Whitethroat in June 2019 was. As a reminder, this was part of the blog post for 4th June of that year:
How do you identify a Siberian Lesser Whitethroat
in the spring/summer? We'd been immediately struck in the field by how
brown-backed today's new arrival at the Obs had looked and made a bit of effort
to cajole it into a net to get a better understanding of its features © Nick
Hopper...
...it did indeed turn out to be appreciably
sandy-brown on the upperparts and had what seemed to be a rather poorly defined
mask. The tail possessed a peculiar mixture of old and new feathers that could
be taken to suggest that the bird was a first-summer although we weren't completely convinced that the old feathers were actually juvenile © Martin Cade:
Anyway, back to the present and now we have an answer - thanks as ever to Professor Martin Collinson and his team at the University of Aberdeen who were clearing a backlog of older samples and recently got round to our dislodged feather from this bird - that it was a blythi Siberian Lesser Whitethroat. Martin informs us that this is only his lab's third genetically confirmed spring blythi - the other two were both from Bardsey Bird Observatory, the first in 2016 and the other just last year in May 2022. Here's another in-hand photo, together with a selection from the few times it afforded any sort of views in the field. It was singing pretty constantly but annoyingly/ineptly we can't at the moment lay our hands on the recordings that seem to have vanished into the bowels of one or other external hard-drive in our office © Martin Cade:
19th February
18th February
Very few migrant moths here during the current mildness but a Rush Veneer from last night's Obs moth-traps was a first for the year pic.twitter.com/ERLf2t8ngv
— Portland Bird Observatory (@PortlandBirdObs) February 18, 2023