Portland Bill

As Carlton had already planned a trip to Dorset to give Elinor and her stuff a lift back home, Dawn, Ben and Carlton decided to combine it with first having a few days at Portland Bird Observatory. Following the awful weather for the drive down on Wednesday Thursday was better with just showers and with a steady improvement through Friday, Saturday was warm and sunny. Besides Martin Cade the Warden Carlton was the only other ringer in residence and with few birds about Martin was happy for him to keep an eye on the garden nets and do any ringing, while he did his other odd jobs and checked a net that was occasionally opened in a nearby patch of sunflowers. The observatory had recently acquired this other land from the crown estate and were managing it purely for birds and other wildlife, growing winter seed crops etc. But birds to ring were few and between Thursday and Saturday morning the grand total was only 15 + (7), although the meagre quantity did contain one nugget of quality. However with so few birds to process the gaps between net rounds did mean there was plenty of time to seawatch, go through the many moth traps, investigate some of the other interesting local flora and fauna and chat with the regular visiting birders.

The final ringing tally was Goldf 1, Linne 1, Robin 4 (1), Piefl 1, Meapi 1, Sedwa 2, Wilwa 4 (3), Chiff (1), Melwa 1, Dunno (1), Greti (1).

Finally on Saturday morning the icing on the cake was when a Western Bonelli’s Warbler was located in the garden and showed well. Unfortunately as it is with this species it stayed mainly high in the canopy of the tamerisks and sycamores and did not venture down to any of the nearby nets. However Carlton was not too disappointed as he has ringed Western Bonelli’s before, whereas the Melodious was a new bird for him. :-).

Portland Bill Bird Observatory Blog

Western Bonelli’s Warbler by Martin Cade

View - Portland Bird Observatory, at the Old Lighthouse

Melodious Warbler