21st May

It's got to that time of the season when there'd be much more productive things to be getting on with than migrant-seeking but the lure of what could be there is keeping the stalwarts at it. Today's less than rewarding selection at the Bill included 3 Reed Warblers, 2 Wheatears and singles of Turtle Dove, Garden Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher on the ground, a trickle of Swifts and House Martins arriving overhead and an Arctic Skua through on the sea. A similarly lean return from elsewhere included a Cuckoo singing at Barleycrates Lane and a Hobby passing through there, a Spotted Flycatcher at Portland Castle, 6 Sanderlings and a Whimbrel at Ferrybridge and 31 Bar-tailed Godwits and a Ringed Plover through off Chesil.

Yesterday's hints at lepidoptera immigration getting going were confirmed, at least during the day, with a small arrival of Painted Ladys throughout the island; Red Admirals increased and a Hummingbird Hawk-moth was again in the Obs garden; overnight moth-trapping was spoilt by a conspicuous dip in the temperature, with 5 Diamond-back Moths at the Obs and a Maiden's Blush at Sweethill the best of the captures.

Painted Lady and Hummingbird Hawk-moth - Easton and Portland Bill, 21st May 2014 © Ken Dolbear (Painted Lady) and Duncan Walbridge (Hummingbird Hawk-moth)

20th May

With yesterday's thunderstorms arriving earlier and fizzling out sooner than anticipated overnight rainfall was all but non-existent, which perhaps played a part in there being little improvement on the land. A very thin scatter of newcomers at the Bill included 2 Spotted Flycatchers and singles of Whimbrel, Wheatear and Reed Warbler on the ground, whilst overhead there were still a trickle of Swifts and hirundines arriving. Seawatching was slightly more eventful, with 70 commic terns, 6 Sandwich Terns, 3 Great Northern Divers and singles of Red-throated Diver, Arctic Skua and Pomarine Skua through off the Bill.

Yesterday's thunderstorms were no doubt instrumental in depositing the year's first substantial flurry of immigrant lepidoptera around the island: Red Admirals begun appearing around the Obs garden yesterday afternoon, whilst overnight moth-trapping there came up with 17 Diamond-back Moths, 4 Maiden's Blush and 2 Silver Y; highlights elsewhere included singles of Orange Footman at Sweethill and Maiden's Blush at the Grove. A Hummingbird Hawk-moth was in the Obs garden today.

19th May

Although the day dawned as pleasantly as the last few it was soon apparent from the cloud streaming in from the south-west that the forecast arrival of thundery showers would come a good deal sooner than expected. The day's highlight proved to be crane/stork that flew rapidly north along the West Cliffs at Blacknor; sadly, it was only spotted as it was disappearing into the distance and on the less than satisfactory views couldn't be clinched, although the observer strongly suspected it to be a Black Stork. Even the onset of the cloud didn't improve the rather grim migrant situation, with 2 each of Reed Warbler, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher, and singles of Whimbrel, Turtle Dove, Yellow Wagtail and Wheatear just about all that could be mustered from the Bill; 13 Sanderling were the best of the waders at Ferrybridge. With the easterly breeze having freshened a little the sea remained worth some time, with 28 Common Scoter, 24 commic terns and a Pomarine Skua through off the Bill, and 160 commic terns and 6 Sanderling east over Chesil.

Sanderlings & Dunlin and commic terns - Ferrybridge and Chesil Beach, 19th May 2014 © Pete Saunders (Sanderlings & Dunlin) and Martin Cade (commic terns)

...the ever-compelling sight of tern passage over Chesil (and for that matter off the Bill) invariably throws up as many questions and opinions as it does answers and truths. Our two images above show part of one flock that shaved the top of the beach on their first attempt at the crossing and headed off rapidly eastwards over Ferrybridge, and part of a second flock that made several attempts hundreds of feet above us but always bottled out at the last minute. Close examination of the series of photos of these flocks show that, as is often suspected with these 'late' birds, the vast majority are Arctic Terns; more worrying however, at least from the recording point of view, is that there are several clear-cut Common Terns (as well as a few birds we're not sure of) amongst them. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of flocks can't be subjected to the photographic scrutiny that these were, it really does seem safest just to log the lot as commic terns.

18th May

Although we're well aware that spring's far from over there was nonetheless quite a feel of the summer doldrums about today's very uneventful proceedings that played out under a blazing sun and in just a waft of an easterly breeze. A Cuckoo at Southwell and a Whinchat at Barleycrates Lane provided just about the only interest around the south of the island, where new arrivals on the ground could otherwise just about be counted on the fingers of one hand; waders fared a little better, with 20 Dunlin, 14 Sanderling, 4 Bar-tailed Godwits and 2 Whimbrel at Ferrybridge. A trickle on the sea included 43 commic terns, 42 Common Scoter, a Great Northern Diver and a Bar-tailed Godwit through off the Bill and 34 Arctic Terns through over Chesil.

Bar-tailed Godwit and Whimbrel - Ferrybridge, 18th May 2014 © Pete Saunders

 

...and the Bar-tailed Godwit in action:

  

17th May

On another hot, sunny day the high hopes for a rarity went unfulfilled but there was a noticeable little flurry of late arrivals on the ground, with upwards of 40 Willow Warblers at the Bill alone. In truth, nothing else featured in quantity, with even hirundines passing through in conspicuously lower numbers than in recent day, but minor interest came in the form of the likes of 10 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 each of Whinchat, Redstart and Reed Warbler, and a single Greenshank at the Bill and 2 more Whinchats at Barleycrates Lane. Seawatching at the Bill came up little more than 36 Common Scoter.

16th May

With the weather remaining much too pleasant to expect any quantity of migrants it was left to 2 rather late Ospreys that flew north over the island an hour apart either side of midday to provide the day's main interest - a nice highlight but mere crumbs in comparison with the raptor-fest elsewhere in South-west England. The largely insignificant spread of routine fare - nothing, for example, reached a double figure total on the ground - included 2 Turtle Doves, 2 Black Redstarts and a Cuckoo at the Bill. Another pulse of Common Scoter passage - 135 off the Bill and 38 off Chesil - was unexpected on the sea, with 3 Great Northern Divers, a Red-throated Diver and an Arctic Skua off the Bill and 2 Shoveler off Chesil also worth a mention.

Whitethroat, Spotted Flycatcher and Turtle Dove - Portland Bill, 16th May 2014 © Debby Saunders (Whitethroat), Joe Stockwell Yet another birding blog (Spotted Flycatcher & settled Turtle Dove) and Martin Cade (flying Turtle Dove)

15th May





Migrants were a good deal harder to come by on the ground today with a combination of the lateness in the season and the onset of fine, summery conditions seeing to it that interest dwindled. Considerable toil did eventually come up with a fair bit of variety, even if the numbers - passing hirundines aside - were less than impressive, with single Turtle Doves at the Bill and Southwell, an overflying Grey Plover at Barleycrates Lane and a seemingly incoming Little Egret at the Bill being the best on offer. Amongst the ones of twos of typical mid-May fare there were slightly better totals of 40 Wheatears, 10 Willow Warblers, 9 Whinchats, 6 Sedge Warblers and 4 Yellow Wagtails scattered about the southern half of the island. With what breeze there was veering into the east sea interest picked up a little, with 41 Common Scoter, 3 Great Northern Divers, 2 each of Red-throated Diver and Arctic Skua, and singles of Teal and Great Skua through off the Bill, another Arctic Skua lingering offshore there all day and another Great Northern Diver through over Ferrybridge.

 

Chiffchaff - Easton, 14th May 2014 © Martin Cade

...we didn't have enough time last night to edit and upload these images and video of a peculiar 'mixed singing' Chiffchaff that we stumbled across at Easton yesterday evening. We didn't have proper recording gear with us at the time but the bird was so close that some of the variation in song is captured fairly well on the soundtrack of the video. The most alarming feature of the encounter was that we tried playing recordings of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Iberian Chiffchaff to it and the only one that elicited any response at all was the recording of Iberian Chiffchaff: on every one of the half-a-dozen or so times we tried it the bird flew straight out of the trees (we left a tiny sequence of one of these events on the end of the video clip when the recording of Iberian Chiffchaff can be heard in the background) and skimmed low overhead - what can be read into that is anyone's guess. Although the bird clearly had some 'interesting' plumage features we did hear it call several times and the calls were always typical Chiffchaff.

Just for comparison, here are a couple of vintage recordings of the famous Verne Common Iberian Chiffchaff of spring 1999 (we only had cassette tape recordings of it so have digitalized them for playback here; according to the long-faded biro annotation on the tape the two recordings were made by Keith Vinicombe and Richard Newton who we hope won't mind us taking the liberty of making them available here):

14th May

Visitors to the island will be aware of the Little Tern breeding colony at Ferrybridge and of the recent success of wardening efforts in consolidating the tern's tenuous foothold there. Morgan Vaughan, this year's summer tern warden, is keen to enlist the help of more volunteers who are able to spare some time to ensure this trend continues. Morgan is holding a meeting for potential volunteers at the Chesil Beach Centre at 7pm tomorrow, Thursday 15th May - please come along and find out how you can help with wardening South-west England's only Little Tern colony.
There was another nice little arrival of late migrants today when nothing more than a moderate headwind dropped a steady succession of newcomers out of a clear blue sky. The centre and south of the island were well-covered and returned totals of 50-60 each of Wheatear, Whitethroat and Willow Warbler, 40 Spotted Flycatchers, 30 Whinchats and 12 Yellow Wagtails, with 2 Pied Flycatchers and a Turtle Dove featuring amongst a varied back-up cast. Although other areas were not so well covered it was evident that there was a good spread of arrivals everywhere, with a Nightingale and Pied Flycatcher at Blacknor and 10 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Redstarts and a Pied Flycatcher at Portland Castle of particular note. The conditions were also conducive for another good throughput of hirundines, with a sample one hour count on West Cliffs coming up with 777 Swallows, 148 House Martins and a handful of Swifts and Sand Martins. Conventional seawatching was a dead loss but odds and ends making the list from occasional cursory looks at the sea at the Bill included 7 Bar-tailed Godwits, 5 Knot, 2 Sanderling, a Great Northern Diver and a Great Skua.

13th May

Although it's beginning to get late in the season for sizeable falls we do get the impression that there are a fair few migrants still to arrive, with today's happenings doing nothing to dispel that belief. A series of showers either side of dawn were more than enough to drop a steady arrival of birds, with many leaping off pretty sharpish once the weather improved. As might be expected, Spotted Flycatchers dominated, with more than 50 at the Bill and plenty more scattered throughout the middle of the island; Willow Warbler approached the same total at the Bill, where 3 Yellow Wagtails, 2 Turtle Doves, 2 Pied Flycatchers, 2 Lesser Whitethroats, a Common Sandpiper and a Redstart were amongst the variety of other largely routine fare on offer. Visible passage took a while to get going, but either side of midday Swallows in particular were passing at rates well into the low hundreds per hour. With the easing breeze shifting toward the north-west there hadn't been a lot of hope for the sea, but salvation came in the form of what will likely prove to be the best day of the spring for Great Northern Divers: 15 passed through off the Bill (in fact one peeled off and took the overland route right over the Obs), whilst an additional single opted for the short-cut over Ferrybridge.

Spotted Flycatchers, Garden Warbler, Pied Flycatcher and Redstart - Portland Bill, 13th May 2014 © Martin Cade

12th May

The events of the foregoing weekend came quite out of the blue and today saw a return to the hiatus that might ordinarily be expected after a week of relentless westerlies. The thin spread of grounded migrants at the Bill/Southwell included 10 Willow Warblers, 8 Spotted Flycatchers, 4 Wheatears, 2 each of Redstart and Blackcap, and singles of White Wagtail, Whinchat, Grasshopper Warbler, Sedge Warbler and Garden Warbler, with a few more of a similar variety elsewhere. A trickle more on the sea included 3 Pomarine Skuas, 2 Great Skuas and a single Great Northern Diver through off the Bill.

White Wagtail and Ravens - Portland Bill, 12th May 2014 © George Gay (White Wagtail) and Tim Cleeves (Ravens)

11th May

Sometimes events that unfold are just so bizarre that you may as well not bother with trying to get your head round them, and one such occurred today when in blink-and-you-miss-it circumstances on an otherwise deadly morning Portland's first Citrine Wagtail swooped in on the little pond beside the Obs patio and after less than 30 seconds flew off, never to be seen again. The quest for the disappeared wagtail did at least ensure there was comprehensive coverage of the south of the island, where 8 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Hobbys and singles of Turtle Dove, Tree Pipit, Whinchat, Redstart, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler and Pied Flycatcher, along with a handful of commoner fare, provided less than adequate compensation for the searchers; 13 Whimbrel also showed up at Portland Harbour. A tally of 7 Great Skuas and 4 Pomarine Skuas was garnered before the early seawatch at the Bill was rudely interrupted; a single Great Northern Diver also passed over at Ferrybridge.

Citrine Wagtail - Portland Bill, 11th May 2014 © Martin Cade

 

...although a long overdue and anticipated addition to the Portland list - there have been at least three previous near misses that didn't quite make the grade - we don't think many folk would have put money on the first Citrine Wagtail dropping in right beside the Obs patio:

We were particularly pleased that, 14 years after he put in the lion's share of the back-breaking task of digging the pond, John Lucas was present today to witness the fruits of his labour:

...and the pond has certainly come on a bit since it was re-lined - and used as an impromptu paddling pool by one errant child - four years ago:

10th May

Some of the most interesting days come when you least expect them, and today proved to be a case in point. A night of continual rain driven through on the beginnings of a westerly gale promised next to nothing on the land so it was a real surprise to find resilient migrants confounding expectations and arriving in some quantity. Spotted Flycatchers featured most conspicuously, including at least 40 at the Bill and 22 at Avalanche Road; with plenty of others dotted about it looked unlikely that the all-island total was any less than 100. The strength of the wind made it very difficult to get amongst many of the more unobtrusive arrivals, and the consistency with which the Obs garden mist-nets were catching hitherto unseen birds suggested there was a lot more about than met the eye; amongst the wide range of other typical late spring migrants making the tally singles of Cuckoo and Turtle Dove at the Bill, 2 Pied Flycatchers at Avalanche Road, another 2 Turtle Doves at Windmill Stables and another apparent Pied Flycatcher at Portland Castle were of particular note. The sea got a lot of coverage and returned totals that included 7 Great Skuas, 3 Arctic Skuas, 3 Roseate Terns, 2 Pomarine Skuas, a Great Northern Diver and a Balearic Shearwater through off the Bill. Waders settled or overhead at Ferrybridge included 12 Whimbrel and 9 Sanderling.

?Pied Flycatcher - Portland Castle, 10th May 2014 © Debby Saunders

...the uploading of Debby's long-range photo of a Pied Flycatcher prompted a rash of online speculation that this was most likely a female Collared Flycatcher. In the meanwhile the bird had been independently photographed - and seemingly correctly sexed as a 'brown' male - by Brett Spencer:

Not wanted to miss out on this piece of intrigue we beat a path to the Castle and our somewhat less satisfactory views, apart from enabling it to be aged as a first-summer, did nothing to overturn our earlier feeling that Debby's photo depicted a male Pied Flycatcher with a unusually large primary patch:

However, on returning home and examining our photos we realised we'd got a flight-shot - albeit from underneath - that appears to show the white primary bases extending out to p4 which would be really, really unusual for a Pied Flycatcher...and - although we're not sure whether it isn't just a trick of the light - there's even a suggestion of white along the whole of the outer web of the outer tail feather:

Closer examination of Brett's photos reveal that traces of white do indeed seem to bleed further out towards the edge of the wing than was apparent in the field - and certainly further out than would be expected on a Pied; also, there's clearly a white-tipped median covert visible on the left wing. So, goodness knows what all this means, and it probably doesn't matter anyway since our interpretation of the saga of the infamous 'Flamborough flycatcher' is that a) whatever it looks like it's going to be Pied, and b) however expensive your optics are they can't read DNA so you may as well not bother to look at birds like this in the field because you're never going to be able to learn any lessons that'll be any use to you in the future; quite likely only a feather or two would furnish us with the answer...

9th May

Whilst not entirely absent on another day of blustery westerlies, grounded arrivals around the south of the island were few enough to enumerate in full: 5 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Wheatears, a Whimbrel, a Whitethroat, a Garden Warbler and a Chiffchaff - has there ever been a more dismal tally on this date? That some migrants were still on the move was indicated by the trickle of Swifts, hirundines and a single Yellow Wagtail that passed over at the Bill. As in previous days the sea provided some salvation, with 3 Great Northern Divers, 2 Great Skuas, a Pomarine Skua and a Roseate Tern through off the Bill.

8th May

Birding was hard going today, with the low cloud and stiff westerly that set in once the morning's heavy rain cleared through making it hard to get amongst the seemingly low numbers of migrants that had made landfall. A bit of variety around the Bill area included 10 Willow Warblers, 4 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Garden Warblers and singles of Sedge Warbler and Pied Flycatcher, whilst overhead a steady arrival of Swifts and hirundines indicated that conditions were maybe not so grim on the other side of the Channel; waders also increased a little, with 142 Dunlin, 47 Ringed Plover, 9 Sanderling, 2 Bar-tailed Godwits and 2 Whimbrel at Ferrybridge. One the rain cleared through there were hopes for the sea, but concerted watching at the Bill could only come with 5 Great Skuas, 2 Arctic Skuas, a Great Northern Diver and a Pomarine Skua.

Spotted Flycatcher - Southwell, 8th May 2014 © Pete Saunders 

7th May

The promise of the mainly southerly air flow of a few days ago looks to be fizzling out as Atlantic-driven conditions set in. Today's cool, blustery westerlies were really not what we'd order up for early May and the quality of the day's birding certainly reflected that fact. Seven more Pomarine Skuas through off the Bill were welcome but not too unexpected, but otherwise seawatching there came up with just 5 Great Skuas, 3 Great Northern Divers and singles of Red-throated Diver and Little Tern. Although Swallows, together with a handful of Swifts, a couple of Yellow Wagtails and a single Hobby, were again passing through in quantity (several hundred per hour at times), the grounded migrant situation remained pretty grim: new arrivals at the Bill included 4 Spotted Flycatchers and singles of Redstart, Lesser Whitethroat and Pied Flycatcher, but nothing in the way of numbers of any of the more routine fare.

6th May

After a wet night - seemingly too wet for many nocturnal migrants to have got moving - yesterday's south-easterly was replaced by a freshening westerly which saw sea passage drop right off; that said, there was still some movement, notably including 43 Sanderling, 5 Pomarine Skuas, 4 Great Skuas, 3 Arctic Skuas and 2 Great Northern Divers through off the Bill. The main feature on the land was another significant arrival of Swallows, with upwards of 500 per hour piling through either side of midday; another single Hobby also passed through at the Bill. On the ground the thin spread of downed migrants included 70 Wheatears, 10 Whinchats, 3 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 Lesser Whitethroats and a Cuckoo at the Bill, a Turtle Dove at Reap Lane and a Goldcrest at Portland Castle, whilst the wader selection at Ferrybridge included 82 Dunlin, 10 Sanderling, 9 Bar-tailed Godwits and 8 Whimbrel.

Whimbrel - Ferrybridge, 6th May 2014 © Debby Saunders

 

...and a peculiar feature of recent days, that hitherto we haven't had enough time to dwell on, has been the appearance at the Bill of three different Continental rubicola Stonechat lookalikes - we use the caveat 'lookalikes' simply because we're not sure whether there's actually much difference genetically between these birds and 'our' local hibernans Stonechats, even if they do usually look that bit different. This individual trapped and ringed at the Obs on 1st May...

 

 

...showed typical plumage features shared not only with the other two new migrants, but also with our resident breeding male (now in his third year of residence):

 

 

Visiting birders are often surprised by the quite striking appearance of these birds and it isn't unusual to hear mutterings about Siberian Stonechat; in reality, the latter are even more arresting - here's a few we were lucky enough to see in Russia last summer:

 

 

 photos all © Martin Cade

 

5th May

A seawatching day has certainly been in offing and today more than came up with the goods. In a near-perfect south-easterly breeze and under clear skies Pomarine Skuas featured in splendid fashion, with 47 through off Chesil, of which 39 also made the log at the Bill. Amongst an extremely varied back-up cast Chesil highlights included 947 commic terns, 354 Manx Shearwaters, 242 Common Scoter, 71 Bar-tailed Godwits, 58 Whimbrel, 46 Little Terns, 14 Arctic Skuas, 8 Sanderling, 4 Grey Plover, 3 Red-throated Divers, 3 Black Terns, 3 Roseate Terns, 2 Gadwall, 2 Great Skuas and singles of Black-throated Diver, Velvet Scoter and Knot; in general numbers were lower off the Bill, but additions to the tally from there included 8 Black Terns, 6 Teal, 4 Pochard and 2 Great Northern Divers, whilst waders pitching in at Ferrybridge included 23 Bar-tailed Godwits, 7 Sanderling and 4 Whimbrel. In terms of numbers the land was very much the poor relation, although there were more than a few morsels of quality: a Serin put in a couple of quick laps over the Bill Quarry, a Turtle Dove showed up in Top Fields, single Hobbys passed over at the Bill and Blacknor and a Wood Warbler lingered at Portland Castle.

 

Teal, Bar-tailed Godwits and Wood Warbler - Portland Bill, Ferrybridge and Portland Castle, 5th May 2014 © Martin Cade (Teal) and Pete Saunders (Barwits and Wood Warbler)

 

...the Wood Warbler was singing and calling rather nicely at times. You'd have imagined that the grounds of an English Heritage pile might have been a refuge of tranquillity with only the gentle rustle of leaves to deflect from the enjoyment of the ebullient songster; however you'd have been sadly mistaken, with our attempt at a sound recording playing out to the accompaniment of a barmy mariner attempting to mend his boat with six inch nails and the emergency services attending a nearby cardiac arrest:

 

 

 The day's spectacle was undoubtedly the Channel run of the Pomarine Skuas; thanks to Sean Foote for some video action from Chesil:

 

 

 

...and our effort from the Bill:

 

 

 Also of interest, this morning the ringers at the Obs controlled this Chiffchaff which constitutes only our second ever Heligoland-ringed recovery - the first was a Firecrest controlled here in November 2012 that had been ringed on Heligoland earlier that autumn (© Martin Cade):

 

 

And finally, we couldn't resist a bit of off-island poaching and nipped over to Lodmoor at the end of the day to have a quick look at the Black-winged Stilt: 

 

4th May

Whilst it wasn't a surprise after another chilly, clear night to find the island relatively devoid of grounded migrants, it was trickier to explain why in almost perfect conditions the sea remained so quiet; we could also take issue with there being not a sniff of an overshooting rarity, but perhaps that would be being greedy. There really weren't any numbers or even variety of consequence on the land, where a tardy Goldcrest was just about the most interesting arrival at the Bill and 4 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Grey Plover and a Sanderling were among the commoner waders at Ferrybridge. A resurgence in Common Scoter passage - 250 at the Bill and 175 off Chesil - was the main feature of the day's seawatching; 50 commic terns, 7 Red-throated Divers, 5 Whimbrel, 4 Arctic Skuas, 2 Shoveler, 2 Red-breasted Mergansers, a Bar-tailed Godwit and a Little Gull also passed through off the Bill, with mainly lower numbers of the same array off Chesil; a single Great Skua also passed over at Ferrybridge.

Sedge Warbler - Southwell, 4th May 2014 © Pete Saunders 

3rd May

With skies having cleared overnight it felt really chilly in a brisk easterly at dawn, although as the day wore on and the breeze eased away it did begin to get a good deal warmer. The bank holiday weekend visitors were treated to an unexpected highlight in the form of the Eastern Subalpine Warbler that surfaced again in Top Fields; the day's only other local oddities were the long-staying Iceland Gull and a fly-over Tree Sparrow at the Bill, although in this day and age the 2 Turtle Doves that also flew north there were almost of similar rarity value. The weather was too fine to have expected much in the way of an arrival of grounded migrants, but there was nonetheless a not too bad spread at the Bill where a Cuckoo was of interest amongst smallish totals of many of the commoner species expected in early May. The fair weather was much more rewarding overhead, with 50 Swifts, 9 Yellow Wagtails and 2 Hobbys through at the Bill amongst a strong passage of Swallows that were arriving at rates of over 500 an hour at times during the morning. The sea has been the poor relation just lately and that trend continued today when the seemingly very promising conditions inexplicably drew a virtual blank: singles of Great Northern Diver off the Bill and Arctic Skua off Chesil were just about all there was on offer.

Bar-tailed Godwit and Orange-tip - Ferrybridge and Bottomcombe Quarry, 3rd May 2014 © Pete Saunders (Bar-tailed Godwits) and Ken Dolbear (Orange-tip)

...and a bit more on the Eastern Subalpine Warbler. While we were hanging around this evening hoping to record some vocalisations from the bird we were struck by just how much the apparent extent of the red on the throat/breast varied; this was obvious in the photos we posted a couple of days ago that were taken in different situations/light by different camera/lens combinations, but even our own little selection that were all taken within a couple of minutes of each other in shade not long before sunset showed remarkable variation:

Eventually, we did have some joy on the vocalisation front, when a close encounter with a Whitethroat prompted both a burst of song and a somewhat varied selection of calls:

2nd May

Persistent cloud cover and a north-easterly breeze were the recipe for another nice drop of common migrants, amongst which there was plenty of variety as phyllosc numbers look to be dwindling and the later season species become more prominent. Greenland Wheatears and Whitethroats were today's feature birds, with 250 and 150 respectively at the Bill; Willow Warbler still chipped in there at the 150 level, whilst further notable totals included around 50 each of Sedge Warbler, Blackcap and Garden Warbler. Less frequent species making the list at the Bill included 6 Pied Flycatchers, 2 Black Redstarts, 2 Grasshopper Warblers, 2 Lesser Whitethroats, the Iceland Gull and a Cuckoo; another Cuckoo was also at Reap Lane/Barleycrates Lane. The seawatchers were yet again thwarted by an unhelpful wind direction, with nothing better than 2 Shoveler and a Great Northern Diver logged at the Bill.

Whitethroat - Portland Bill, 30th April 2014 © Pete Saunders

1st May

May begun in fine style with the very welcome discovery of an Eastern Subalpine Warbler in Helen's Fields at the Bill; first found once the morning's rain had cleared through, the bird proved to be a popular and at times showy draw for the rest of the day. After a damp and murky night when waders were on the move in some numbers grounded migrants were found to be far from numerous at dawn, although the smattering at the Bill did include minor interest in the form of singles of Iceland Gull (the usual long-stayer), Black Redstart, Grasshopper Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher and a likely Continental Stonechat at the Bill, whilst visible passage included several Swifts and a Kestrel arriving in/off there. After being all but absent for much of April Manx Shearwaters featured in their highest numbers so far this year, with 400 through off the Bill during the evening; earlier, 100 commic terns, 53 Common Scoter, 13 Whimbrel, 7 Great Skuas and singles of Red-throated Diver, Great Northern Diver, 'Blue' Fulmar and Arctic Skua had passed by there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eastern Subalpine Warbler - Portland Bill, 1st May 2014 © David Carr davidcarrphotography.co.uk (top still), Brett Spencer Brett's Goosey Ganderings   (middle still) and Pete Saunders (bottom still) and Martin Cade (video)

 

...although there was little doubt that this bird was an Eastern Subalpine Warbler, that fact was more than confirmed by the shape and extent of white in the outer tail feathers. In the field we'd taken it - at least on the basis of the striking tail pattern and seemingly not too faded flight feathers - to be an adult, but closer examination of the wing - there look to be some fresh inner secondaries and inner greater coverts, as well as a new alula, whilst maybe the flight feathers were more faded/worn than we'd at first appreciated - together with the rather ambiguous nature of some what we read in the literature, made us not so sure. Sadly no calls were heard/recorded (and of course it wasn't trapped) so we were none the wiser as to which of the proposed two subspecies of Eastern Subalpine it belonged to (additional photos © Martin Cade):

 

 

 

 Finally, and on a completely different subject, last night's fog and rain brought a whole variety of passing waders within earshot, both at the Bill and elsewhere over the island - we haven't got a clue how many there were or to what extent the same disorientated flocks were merely circling overhead, for although they were at times very low they stayed resolutely out of the beams of the Bill Lighthouse or the light from our Obs garden moth-traps; however, as an auditory experience it was a quite amazing and exceptional event that lasted for several hours - have a listen to a few short recordings made from near the Bill Lighthouse: