20th May

A day of very birdable clear, sunny and increasingly warm conditions provided another good flurry of late migrants but looked to be fizzling out without any particular highlight when a classic Portland 'out of nowhere' mid-afternoon rarity - a Western Subalpine Warbler in this case - showed up in the Obs garden mist-nets. The majority of the morning passage involved visible migrants, with 136 House Martins, 85 Swallows, 84 Swifts and a Tree Pipit through at the Bill; a good many of the 30 or so Spotted Flycatchers logged around the south of the island were also active migrants that headed straight through overhead, whilst the likes of 3 Chiffchaffs, 2 Blackcaps and 2 Willow Warblers were new on the ground at the Bill and the 2 long-staying Corn Buntings there and at Barleycrates Lane were still about. Loitering Manx Shearwaters dominated offshore, where 27 Common Scoter, 5 Sandwich Terns, 3 Great Northern Divers and a Sanderling also passed by.

What with the Moltoni's Warbler only a little over a week ago and now today's apparent Western Subalpine Warbler it seems that some vector of Subalp vagrancy is headed toward Portland right now - not great for them but fun for us. In comparison to the Moltoni's what red there was on today's bird immediately struck as as orangey-toned and not in the least bit pink; it was also in pretty shoddy plumage whereas the Moltoni's was in really good order - with the tail pattern straight away having ruled out Eastern Subalpine, to our eyes these features strongly favoured Western Subalpine:


Although clearly not a fine male we were hesitant with sexing the bird - the literature urges caution so although the overall whiteness of the underparts seems to favour it being a female we're not sure that completely eliminates the possibility of it being a young male:


If we're interpreting the state of moult correctly then age-wise it's most likely a first-summer since there are three new outer primaries, two new inner secondaries and a new alula - all of which have been gained during the partial prebreeding moult in Africa (this moult is more extensive in young birds than it is in adults):


In typical Western Subalpine fashion there were multiple generations of tail feathers: it looks like the very worn central pair are old juvenile feathers, whereas the others are a mix of post-juvenile and prebreeding moult feathers © Martin Cade:


19th May

More cloud in the sky today - particularly when a spectacular electric storm and downpour rolled in during the afternoon - that dropped another steady arrival of late migrants and also brought down to audible and just visible height a surprise package in the form of 2 Bee-eaters departing to the south over the Obs. The migrant variety included 20 Spotted Flycatchers, 6 Turnstones, 5 Willow Warblers, 4 Chiffchaffs, 4 Blackcaps, 2 Wheatears, a Whimbrel, a Dunlin and a Reed Warbler around the south of the island and 20 Ringed Plovers, 6 Dunlin, 3 Sanderling and a Black Redstart at Ferrybridge; at least 2 of the long-staying Corn Buntings were also about on the land. Overhead passage wasn't as conspicuous as it had been at times earlier in the week but Swifts and Swallows were still on the move and a lone Yellow Wagtail passed through at the Bill. As they have been for several weeks, Manx Shearwaters were ever-present offshore; 48 Common Scoter, a few tardy Common Gulls and singles of Red-throated Diver and Arctic Skua also passed through off the Bill.

The second Cypress Tip Moth Argyresthia cupressella for the island was trapped overnight at Sweethill.

In days gone by there'd have been no tangible evidence for the pass overhead by the Bee-eaters - today's event happened so quickly that even folk close by dipped them - but these days by the simple expedient of leaving the nocmig recorder running we get left with something to review at our leisure. In this case things weren't helped by the dish pointing a good 90° away from the birds and the world and his wife talking loudly right beside it; however, with the volume maxed out the birds are quite audible and the sonogram clearly shows the four loudest calls that we've highlighted (we have had to chop out a few seconds of really intrusive extraneous racket between each call so the calls are a little closer together than they were in real time):


With the ecological breakdown manifesting itself most obviously in our moth-traps we haven't had much to report lately bar a steady few mostly routine immigrants - the majority of indigenous species have been in pitifully low numbers all spring. However, there have been a few Radford's Flame Shoulders showing up in the traps and with Flame Shoulder also now on the wing there have been some nice comparisons to check out. The differences visible at repose are well enough documented in the standard literature and show up well enough in this side-by-side photograph...


...however, we do sometimes see specimens that are trickier - most often because they're worn or damaged - and then it pays to have a quick 'manipulation' to make sure the ID's correct; this is easily done by nipping the end of one of the forewings to expose the abdomen and give a clear view of the hindwing - on a Radford's the white hairs at the base of the abdomen and the altogether silkier-white hindwing immediately contrast with creamier abdomen hairs and duller hindwings of an 'ordinary' Flame Shoulder.



Incidentally, we've been pleased to see a few Radford's this spring after their quite catastrophic fall in numbers last year: having been relentlessly on the up and reaching a remarkable year-total of 620 in 2021, last year's total plunged to just 30 © Martin Cade.

18th May

More of the same today: always the feel that there was something to be unearthed but whatever it was it didn't materialise or couldn't be found! The migrant tally ticked along with a scatter of Wheatears, Whinchats, Reed Warblers, Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and Spotted Flycatchers dotted about on the ground and a few Swifts and hirundines - along with 2 each of Tree Pipit and Yellow Wagtail - through overhead; in the context of the island and what we're hoping it might presage, an increase to 3 Corn Buntings - 2 together at Barleycrates Lane and the single at the Bill - were a very welcome sight. Offshore, an unexpected resurgence in Common Scoter passage saw 200 logged passing the Bill, with 2 Balearic Shearwaters also through there; additionally, overnight the first Storm Petrel of the year was sound-lured and trapped at the Bill tip.

One of the day's half a dozen Spotted Flycatchers © Debby Saunders:

17th May

A rather low-key day after the recent excitements with no more than a trickle of expected mid-May migrants on the ground and overhead. The numbers were again overhead, with arriving Swifts and Swallows both getting into three figures with House Martins just getting past 50; the majority of the single figure totals of Spotted Flycatchers, Tree Pipits and Yellow Wagtails also involved birds heading straight through. It was tough going on the ground, with a light scatter of Reed Warblers, 2 Whinchats and a lone Grasshopper Warbler the best that could be mustered around the south where the two long-staying Corn Buntings were both still present. Offshore, 3 more passing Arctic Skuas were of note at the Bill.

16th May

May continued to work its magic today with a Woodchat Shrike showing up at the Bill and lingering in the Strips all day, whilst on the common migrant front the clear, sunny sky clearly tempted plenty of late migrants aloft, with the noticeable headwind dropping many - particularly Swifts - to a height where they were readily encountered arriving over the Bill. The day's tally of 254 Swifts was certainly the high point numbers-wise; tardy Swallows and House Martins reached 184 and 86 respectively, whilst a fair few of the 21 Spotted Flycatchers logged around the south of the island were watched passing straight through overhead. The migrant variety otherwise included the Hawfinch that had roosted overnight but quickly left northwards at dawn, an overflying Greylag Goose, an unseasonable Snipe, a single passing Hobby and ones and twos of a fair few commoner species. Given the conditions nothing was expected from the sea so 3 Great Northern Divers and a single Arctic Skua represented a fair return from the Bill.

Portland's first record of Woodchat Shrike apparently concerned one shot in 1928 but in the modern era of more enlightened ornithological exploration there have been 67 more records between 1952 and today's individual showing up - so they're running at a pretty respectable average of just shy of one a year which isn't too bad considering there have been several hiatus periods, for example, even quite recently there were none between 2012 and 2018 © Martin Cade:

15th May

After a night of light rain and with a decent headwind blowing at dawn a tad more was expected of today than actually materialised; that said, any day with a Hawfinch as the highlight is a pretty decent day. The Hawfinch made an utterly unexpected appearance in the Obs garden long after the apparently promising conditions had evaporated; earlier, a steady passage of 17 Spotted Flycatchers - most moving straight through - had provided the bulk of the numbers among a thinnish selection of other routine arrivals at the Bill that also included 2 Yellow-legged Gulls and 2 Hobbys. Another passing Great Northern Diver was the pick of what little was on the move offshore.

History's shown us so often that you just never know what'll pop up out of the blue on a migration headland like Portland and today it was this Hawfinch found right at the end of the afternoon in the bottom panel of a mist-net that was about to be closed after having been open for nearly 11 hours; with not a hint of untoward happenings afoot and in utterly benign conditions you have to wonder what on earth this bird was up to - where had it come from, where was it heading and, being an adult male, why wasn't it ensconced breeding somewhere © Martin Cade:



14th May

A day serious blighted by the comings and goings of thick fog that was always lapping around the shores of the island - the Bill area was particularly affected but nowhere escaped spells when meaningful fieldwork was almost impossible. Plenty of effort was put in and a respectable round-island tally of new arrivals that included 7 Spotted Flycatchers, 6 Reed Warblers, 4 Wheatears, 3 each of Sedge Warbler and Chiffchaff, 2 each of Yellow Wagtail, Whinchat and Willow Warbler, and singles of Cuckoo, Tree Pipit, Firecrest and Corn Bunting (the long-staying Corn Bunting was also still present) suggested that with more helpful conditions there might have been something of higher quality to be uncovered.

Two photographs taken at more or less the same time this morning: Fortuneswell bathed in sunshine but looking as though it was about to be swallowed up by fog © Nick Hopper and the Obs barely visible at 100 metres © Martin Cade:



13th May

We're pretty sure we've been spiteful about World Migratory Bird Day in the past but inevitably it proved to be the death knell for almost all migration at Portland - not that there had been much going on anyway since the month of May seems to have become almost a rarity-only period these days. With dawn far clearer than had been anticipated grounded arrivals really weren't expected in any quantity and proved in fact to be almost absent, with a Yellow-legged Gull at the Bill and 2 Whinchats and a Redstart either side of Southwell as good as it got. Hirundine passage might have been expected given the lovely windless conditions and clear, sunny sky but even they were inexplicably sparse and it was left to the likes of the odd few overflying Swifts, Tree Pipits, Yellow Wagtails and Spotted Flycatchers, along with a single Hobby, to provide interest overhead. Offshore, 3 Arctic Skuas and 2 Great Northern Divers passed through off the Bill.

It's a bad job when you're reduced to looking at seagulls in mid-May - this Yellow-legged Gull was just about bird of the day at the Bill © Martin Cade:


We don't know what's happened to wader passage this year - presumably the Dunlins and Sanderlings just haven't got going yet for on four evening visits to Ferrybridge in the last week we literally haven't seen a single small wader on the sandflats. The conditions were so glorious on this evening's abject visit that we decided to abort and head over to Lodmoor to see if the Purple Heron that had been seen there earlier in the day might put in a reappearance. As luck would have it our timing was perfect but our ineptitude was such that we managed to mess up what could have been a great view of it: shortly after arriving our desire for a call of nature was sufficiently great that we had to pop behind some strategic bushes and it was at just this moment that an odd-sounding heron started calling and on looking up we realised the Purple Heron had emerged from a nearby reedbed - with hands momentarily otherwise engaged there was no chance of a photograph until the bird was considerably further away and before long was in fact disappearing high out to sea across Weymouth Bay, never to be seen again! © Martin Cade:

12th May

A very memorable day with the arrival of Portland's first and Britain's 12th Moltoni's Warbler beside and later in the Obs garden a long-expected highlight. The bird proved far from easy to confirm, as much because it remained silent and so well-hidden for such a long time after first discovery but was eventually very satisfactorily clinched in every way; after release in the Obs Quarry it showed just once more before promptly vanishing. In an at times quite brisk northeasterly there was also a small arrival of grounded common migrants at the Bill that included 10 Spotted Flycatchers, 7 Yellow Wagtails, 5 Reed Warblers, 4 Wheatears and ones and twos of Sedge Warbler, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, along with a heavier passage overhead that mainly consisted of Swallows and House Martins, but had the likes of 30 Swifts, a Hobby and, more oddly, a Lapwing tagging along; the lingering Corn Bunting also remained at the Bill. Two more Great Northern Divers trundled past on the sea, with 7 Sanderlings and singles of both Red- and Black-throated Divers, and an Arctic Skua among the other loggings. 

If there's one bird we've been banging on about all spring it's been Moltoni's Warbler - every guest venturing out into the field has been given finding one as their mission for the day! So it came to pass that this morning no sooner had Jodie left the Obs on a patrol of the area than we received a call from her reporting a glimpse of an interesting-looking blue-backed warbler flushed from beside the lane to the Obs Quarry; Sue Parmenter was close by and she had an equally brief view of what looked like some warmth to the bird's underparts. Initial searches drew a blank but on a second circuit of the search area we stumbled across it furtively working through some dense cover right beside the Obs garden - views in the open were subliminal but a couple of snatched photos showed it to be a subalpine warbler. However, what used to be a doddle isn't any more so with rubbish views, a lousy photograph and no calls heard the ID couldn't get beyond subalpine sp - and we weren't even sure what sex it was!


With no further sign anywhere close to the finding spot the search area widened and a long time elapsed before we received another call - it had popped up in front of Nick Hopper on the far side of the Obs garden and, rather arrestingly, he'd heard a single rattle call from the same vicinity. We hastened to the spot via picking up a sound recorder and after a short wait three more rattles close by but from deep within cover confirmed the ID in our mind...



...Knowing that there was an open mist-net only a few metres behind the hidden caller a catch seemed almost inevitable if we walked through the cover towards it and so it proved:


The underpart colouration was so subdued that at first we weren't at all certain of the bird's sex but perhaps it's most likely a first-summer male - the upperparts look rather too blue-grey and the eye-ring too red for a female:


Although the wings looked brown in the field this wasn't due to heavy wear that might also have supported ageing as a first-summer; to the contrary, the wings were fabulously fresh for a spring Subalpine which is to be expected in many Moltoni's as they have a very weird moult regime that includes many moulting almost completely in winter. As far as we can make out the only obviously older generation feathers seem to be the two smaller tertials and perhaps the penultimate inner secondary - if these were very heavily worn they might be juvenile feathers which would support ageing as a first-summer but this doesn't seem to be the case so on moult pattern alone we're not sure that the bird can be conclusively aged:


The pattern of the second outermost tail feather, with the white tip squared-off, is as would expected for Moltoni's and Western Subalpine - an Eastern Subalpine should have a larger white wedge extending down the feather shaft © Martin Cade:


11th May

Yesterday's weather upturn was maintained and by the calm, sunny late afternoon it had begun to feel really pleasant. A little flourish of Spotted Flycatchers - about a dozen around the south of the island with many looking to be moving straight through - another steady arrival of Swallows and the highest total of Swifts to date (only 22 so hardly anything to shout about) provided the day's numbers that, together with ones and twos of a range of other routine May fare, lent at least a suggestion of everything not quite being over to the day's proceedings. Sea interest has been gradually subsiding and in an offshore breeze that trend continued, with 3 Great Northern Divers and a Yellow-legged Gull the best of what relatively was on the move off the Bill.

Even though breeding wasn't proved, one of last year's most welcome events was the re-occupation of the cliffs inside the QinetiQ compound by good numbers of Kittiwakes. This year they're back and by the look of it they've increased considerably; unfortunately a lot of the action looks to be taking place out of sight in the middle section of the cliffs but on the visible northern section there are several apparent pairs settled on the former breeding ledges even if we couldn't see any evidence that they've yet begun nest-building. Fingers crossed that they remain in residence and start breeding © Martin Cade:




10th May

A very welcome improvement in the weather - an improvement in terms of at least not getting a soaking rather than any improvement that might be beneficial migrant-wise - saw just one passing shower during the morning. Sadly, there wasn't any increase in common migrant numbers but a few island scarcities were of interest: a Hooded Crow arrived in off the sea at the Bill, a Yellowhammer dropped in briefly there, the Corn Bunting remained in the Upper Strips and a second individual showed up briefly at at Ferrybridge. The grounded migrant situation was again woeful but overhead Swallows were arriving in fair quantity throughout the morning at least. A few reports from the sea included 2 Arctic Skuas and a Great Northern Diver through off the Bill.

Not that we're after a repeat of last summer's drought but it'd be nice to think this was the last dose of rain we saw for a few days just so that the footpaths could dry out a little - having to keep wearing winter footwear at this time of year is getting pretty tiresome! © Martin Cade:


Scarcity of the day was the Hooded Crow that likely came in off the sea at the Bill - from our seawatching viewpoint behind the shelter of Pulpit Rock it was high and already past us and heading away north off West Cliffs when we spotted it so the views were rubbish but the photos do afford a clear view of the upperwing that shows it was a different individual to the rather ropey-looking bird that was around in the late winter/early spring © Martin Cade:


With a lingering singing male already present at the Bill it was a real novelty to have a second Corn Bunting show up on the island when this individual dropped in at Ferrybridge; we can't imagine that many Corn Buntings - if any at all - ever used to visit Ferrybridge when the species was a common breeding bird around the island © Joe Stockwell:


In this day and age beggars can't be choosers when it comes to getting a record-shot of a Portland Puffin - one of these years it/they won't return to the auk colony and Puffin will suddenly become a really high value bird in this neck of the woods © Martin Cade:

9th May

A much more birdable day even if fog that rolled in either side of midday didn't make things easy; being birdable also enabled it to be firmly established that there was again very little about. At the Bill, singles of Turtle Dove and Corn Bunting - along with a late afternoon fly-by Serin - were of note but commoner arrivals were extremely few and far between, with 2 Chiffchaffs the only migrants captured during the day's ringing sessions at the Obs and Culverwell - the late May doldrums have come early this year! Visible passage was also almost non-existent and a single Red-throated Diver can hardly be classed as a worthwhile reward for the seawatchers.

The Turtle Dove and Corn Bunting at the Bill this morning © Martin Cade:


8th May

A day that'll quickly be forgotten save for us perhaps discovering by the end of it that some sort of long-standing May rainfall record was broken, with a deluge seeing in dawn, continuing mizzly outbreaks preventing most meaningful fieldwork and another torrent from teatime until well after dark seeing the day out - all in all pretty grim! A Curlew Sandpiper at Ferrybridge and 2 Great Northern Divers through off the Bill were easily the highlights of the handful of  migrants logged.

7th May

It was a lovely sunny day to be out birding but unfortunately yesterday afternoon's fog had persisted throughout the night and still didn't clear until a while after dawn which saw to it that most nocturnal migrants likely passed high overhead without ever being aware of the island's existence. It wasn't entirely bereft on the ground, with a Wood Warbler at Broadcroft and a Corn Bunting at the Bill the clear highlights; a late Firecrest was also unexpected at the Bill, where the lingering singles of Grasshopper Warbler and Pied Flycatcher were of further note amongst the thin scatter of newcomers. If diurnal passage was anything to go by then it would surely have been a lot busier on the ground were it not for the blanket of fog, since Swallows were streaming through no sooner had it cleared and continued to do so right on into the evening; several Yellow Wagtails and Tree Pipits passed over amongst the hirundines and a Hobby arrived over Chesil. The sea required long watches to accrue any sort of totals, but eventually 4 Great Northern Divers, 4 Eider and singles of Pomarine and Arctic Skuas off the Bill and singles of Great Northern Diver and Arctic Skua off Chesil were accumulated amongst the more routine movers that included a total of 300 Gannets off the Bill that in the context of this spring was very respectable.

A Vagrant Emperor was on the wing at Tout Quarry.

What started off a routine long-range view of a passing Pom Skua this evening...


...suddenly went a bit mad as we hadn't appreciated how many gulls it was flushing as we were following it with the camera - this was the last view we had of it before the frame was suddenly filled with many hundreds of the 3000 or so gulls that were offshore that had all lifted up in uttter panic! © Martin Cade:

6th May

A bit of a grim day with heavy rain from pre-dawn until mid-morning following by thick fog developing during the afternoon and persisting until well after dark - the in-between hours allowed for a fair bit of fieldwork from which the rewards were scant. What small arrival of grounded migrants there was consisted of single figure totals of the expecteds, with the two morsels of better quality - singles of Grasshopper Warbler and Pied Flycatcher at the Bill - both seemingly lingerers. The sea got lots of looks, with 4 Arctic Skuas, a Great Northern Diver, a Balearic Shearwater and a Great Skua off the Bill and 2 Arctic Skuas off Chesil the pick of the passage.

5th May

With poor returns from the land and the sky it was the sea that saved the day once again, with an enticing onshore breeze pushing a steady if largely unspectacular passage within sight at the Bill. Seven Pomarine Skuas were the chief reward but 5 Red-throated Divers, 3 Arctic Skuas, 2 Great Northern Divers, singles of Balearic Shearwater and Great Skua, and a miscellany of other seasonable back-ups provided just enough movement to ensure long coverage that also saw to it that respectable totals of Kittiwakes, Mediterranean Gulls and Common Gulls were accrued; yet again, terns were almost entirely absent. An inbound Hobby was the best of what precious little was on the move overhead, whilst 3 Yellow Wagtails and singles of Grasshopper Warbler and Pied Flycatcher - the latter a lingerer - were the the pick of the thin smattering on the ground at the Bill.

This morning's Pomarine Skuas weren't the best performers - at least, those that went past when we were at the Bill tip weren't - OK through a 'scope but pretty distant for photographs...


...However, the seawatch wasn't without better views of some things including this close Red-throated Diver...


...and the ongoing gull passage was worth paying attention to: Kittiwakes reached their highest total of the spring and there were good numbers of immature Mediterranean and Common Gulls mingled amongst them...



The photos also revealed quite nicely just how variable the underwings of Common Gulls are - the Dutch split things on far more tenuous grounds than this! © Martin Cade:


Video-wise, the light must have been duffer than we thought but you get some of the feel for an Arctic Skua and a flock of Common Scoter whizzing by...


...and downloading that from the camera reminded us we'd never got round to downloading some video of a group of Eider passing the Bill a few evenings ago. Is there anything that passes the Bill that flies as fast as an Eider? - since they seem to bob around all winter doing nothing in particular you'd think they'd get flabby and out of condition but not a bit of it - once they get migrating they shift like dumpy bullets! © Martin Cade

4th May

A day that saw the beginnings of a weather shake-up actually begun in precisely the same vein as yesterday with a blasting easterly blowing but by the afternoon had deteriorated into frequent and at times heavy showers with the abating breeze having veered towards the south. A small arrival of mainly Willow Warblers was evident on the ground, with waders numbers also up a tad at Ferrybridge, where 63 Dunlin, 45 Ringed Plovers, 4 Bar-tailed Godwits, 2 Sanderling and singles of Grey Plover and Whimbrel - along with a lone Greylag Goose - were downed; most of the day's interest though was overhead or offshore. Overhead, Swifts and hirundines trickled in, along with singles of Honey Buzzard and Hobby - the former the earliest spring arrival ever recorded at Portland, whilst offshore 5 Arctic Skuas, 2 Balearic Shearwaters and 2 Pomarine Skuas were accompanied by singles of Red-throated and Great Northern Diver, a trickle of Manx Shearwaters and Common Scoter and a variety of waders that included 20 Bar-tailed Godwits, 15 Whimbrel, 2 Sanderling, 2 Turnstones, 2 Sanderling and a Grey Plover.

Singles of Painted Lady and Hummingbird Hawkmoth were on the wing at the Bill.

Seawatching can be highly entertaining, a terrible time-waster and pretty brutal - often all in the same watch! This morning we got occasional treats in the form of Arctic Skua and Balearic Shearwater, as well as having a couple of Turnstones - surely the very best of the Arctic waders - pitch right in front of us, but also had the massive frustration of watching what looked a lot like a Purple Heron appear out of nowhere miles out to sea and, totally bizarrely, instead of trying to make landfall head directly away in the direction of south Devon, as well as later dipping a Honey Buzzard that arrived in off the sea just behind us...




...Later in the day, having just been watching two Pom Skuas distantly from the Obs we got word of four more approaching Portland from the west so returned to the Bill for another 'proper' watch and the imagined scorching views of the lumbering goodies; more Arctic Skuas and another Balearic Shearwater entertained but of the Poms not the slightest sniff before we eventually got rained-off © Martin Cade:


3rd May

In an increasingly blasting easterly today was a shocker for grounded arrivals although judging by the number of Swallows passing through by day the nocturnal migrants would have been moving in quantity as well but under such a clear night sky just didn't have any reason to stop. Two Yellow Wagtails and a lone Pied Flycatcher provided the only interest amongst the tiny number of arrivals around the south of the island. Visible passage was far stronger although, sadly, remained largely unquantified where it was strongest on West Cliffs; elsewhere a Marsh Harrier passed over at Wakeham and reports were received of a Merlin and a Golden Oriole passing over at the Bill. The sea always held promise without really delivering: a mini surge in Common Scoters - 127 passed the Bill - was only accompanied by the likes of 11 Sanderling, 6 Whimbrel, 5 Arctic Skuas and 3 Red-throated Divers.

We don't very often handle 'brown' male Pied Flycatchers so today's bird in first-summer plumage was good to have a close look at; even odder than its plumage was the method of its capture: on a morning with practically nothing in the Obs garden stalwart chat-catcher Glen Thomas was attempting to salvage something from a barren day with his spring-traps across the road in the Crown Estate Field and this was the only bird caught - we have no clue what it was up to out on the bare-earth strips in the middle of the field in the teeth of a gale when the shelter of the well-vegetated Obs garden was only 100 metres away! © Martin Cade:




2nd May

We're fortunate to be spoilt enough with Serins that they're not of day-saving quality these days and so it proved today, when an unseen songster at the Obs during the morning and likely the same individual - again unseen - in a private garden at Southwell during the afternoon were unable to compensate for the poor migrant showing on ground. Under a clear sky and in an ever-freshening northeasterly the 50 Willow Warblers logged at the Bill constituted the only double-figure grounded total at the Bill; the still lingering Ring Ouzel at Weston and the Ferrybridge contribution of 2 each of Whimbrel and Sanderling and a lone Grey Plover provided the only minor interest amongst the day's on-ground sightings. It was busier overhead, with Swallows in particular passing pretty steadily as evidenced by the 90 minute sample total of 404 through along West Cliffs at Blacknor; singles of Sparrowhawk and Hobby also passed over at the Bill where 21 Wood Pigeons arriving in off were a surprise. Some early promise offshore that saw 80 Bar-tailed Godwits and 15 Knot pass the Bill just as the sun rose wasn't really maintained, with 7 Arctic Skuas, 2 Great Northern Divers and 2 Balearic Shearwaters the best of the later rewards from the sea.

Manx Shearwater numbers have been well below par so far this spring which has made it pretty straightforward getting onto the couple of early Balearics that have shown up in recent days...


...In the low sunlight towards dusk the few Manx about were looking super sharp and contrasty compared with the paler than average but still very wishy-washy Balearics earlier in the day © Martin Cade:

1st May

Passage - at least that impinging on us - has slowed right down at the moment, with today's light northwesterly doing nothing to perk things up; it wasn't that there weren't birds about but the feeling was always that there could have been an awful lot more in early May. Around the south of the island two Cuckoos, a Grasshopper Warbler and a Firecrest were new, the lingering Ring Ouzel remained and the first multiple arrival of Spotted Flycatchers featured amongst the commoner migrants; 60 Willow Warblers, 25 Wheatears and 20 each of Blackcap and Whitethroat accounted for the bulk of the numbers on the ground, whilst overhead Swallows and Sand Martins were arriving in an at times more than steady trickle. The breeze was always too offshore for the sea, with singles of Great Northern Diver and Arctic Skua - along with a good for this late total of 25 Common Gulls - the best off the Bill.
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