Being in the right place at the right time is the essence of seeing rare birds, and it wasn’t enough to be somewhere in the locality when a Red-rumped Swallow flew over Portland or when Great and Pomarine Skuas put in brief appearances along Chesil Bank. The Portland sightings report looked great that day, but the nine of us who turned up for this mid-week walk weren’t lucky enough to catch up with any of the above. Nonetheless, it was good to see the Chesil Beach colony of breeding Little Terns in full swing and my first Swift of the year coming in off the sea. There seemed to be very few migrants on the land, probably because the unsuitably blue sky and gentle south-east wind gave them no reason to pause on their migration. At sea there was a steady passage of Gannets, a few Manx Shearwaters, one flock of nine Common Scoters, and much to-ing and fro-ing from the local Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills. A bonus was the Little Owl that lives in the quarry but doesn’t always show, on view today and blinking in the sunshine. Finally, a couple of lucky people had views of the Bearded Tits that we were searching for at Radipole, where Cetti’s Warblers were shouting their heads off and showing unusually well – pressure of numbers causing the birds to pop out of the bushes more often. Worth the visit, shame we missed the rarities. (thanks for leading Jane)
Jane Cumming