Steady little weekend

The easterly airflow that caused a major fall of birds and moths on the east coast (and a smaller fall locally) switched to a light southerly here by Saturday morning. A juvenile Sabine's Gull was off the Bill HERE at around 7am for 20 mins but by the time I got there it had already drifted off. A bit of a big local dip as it's a species that only occurs once or twice a decade here. There was a bit of vis mig over the bill with 16 Tree Pipit and 18 Yellow Wagtail in the short time I was there and there were also 5 Black Terns and a dark phase Arctic Skua feeding off shore in the feeding flock off Hillfield Road.

In the afternoon I checked Ferry Pool, a couple of Spotted Redshanks there and then had another go at looking for the Sabine's Gull off Hillfield Road. Just a Wheatear there. It was more or the less the same species at Mill Lane Marsh as the previous day, the highlight being the really nice juvenile Barwit feeding with the juv Blackwits again. A Hobby flew over the marsh. 

Back home I had a quick check of the lane, once again the bulk of the hirundines on the peninsula seem to be in the fields between here and Medmerry with about 300-400 hawking over the fields. A Tree Pipit flew out of the oaks in the morning there when I was doing the moths.

The weather was similar this morning, a light southerly and cloudy skies.  I had a look round Church Norton. Migrants/highlights HERE included the Red-backed Shrike again, 9 Pintail over, 15 Wigeon flushed by an Osprey that was hunting in the harbour, a Spot Fly in the church and pretty good numbers of warblers including 15+ Chiffchaff, 3 Willow Warbler, 8 Blackcap, 5 Whitethroat and 3 Goldcrests. A Meadow Pipit overhead was my first of the autumn and a Black Tern flew over ahead of a rain shower. 

All the moth migrant action seems to be occurring on the East coast at the moment with unprecedented numbers of Small Mottled Willows (200-300 at single sites) and a couple of Many-lines and Silver-spotted Veneers in the north east.  Overall pretty quiet here, a Blackneck was the latest addition to the garden list (now on 359) and there's been a few regular migrants species with up to 5 Delicates, a couple of Radfords, a few Portland Ribbon Waves and single Dark Spectacle, Four-spotted Footman and L-album Wainscot in addition to the more expected (in small numbers) Rush Veneers, Rusty-dot Pearls, Silver-Ys, the odd Diamond-back, Dark Sword Grass, Angle Shades and White-points.

The most prominent lepidoptera migrant recently are Red Admirals- hundreds are moving through Kent and round here there are small numbers more or less everywhere e.g. 15-20 this morning at Church Norton, 3-4 in the garden and about 10-15 along Selsey high street this afternoon. Also had a Painted Lady feeding with Red Ads on Buddleia in the high street.  

 

Adult male Red-backed Shrike 

Pintail over

Wheatear at the Bill (finally got the classic shot of one on the bill house roofs)

Willow Warbler- being well outnumbered by Chiffchaffs now

Black Tern off the Bill- about 7-8 in the area this weekend 

Juvenile Barwit and Juvenile Blackwit

The smartest Blair's Mocha I've had 

A nice fresh Radford's Flame Shoulder 

Getting up to 8-9 Portland Ribbon Waves on several nights recently. I noticed on the Portland blog that we seem to have more round here than they do at Portland which is interesting. 

Feathered Gothic- up to five a night recently 

Blackneck 

Red Admirals (above and below)- more or less everywhere at the moment including landing on cars and gathering around Buddleias and flowering garden plants 

.....and meanwhile inside the house in the mini-zoo our Asian Fawn Tarantula has been sitting out in the open recently for the first time in two years- we can go literally months without seeing this.