In the beginning...

Portland, Dorset

6-8th April 2010

Spent a few days at Portland Bird Obs last week. Witnessed, as Martin (Cade) explained, '...one of the last of the 'winter' sunrises before the sun starts to rise from behind the distant Purbeck coast (St Alban's Head, in the distance, is a tiny bit north of due east from the Bill and 29 kms away)...' The significance of this is that i will be cycling to these hills and on to Exeter in just six weeks time!

6th April

Early start, getting to the obs from Southsea by 6:30a.m. Glorious day but relatively slow birding for Portland. This is however different for me as i don't get to see the migrants as early, in as many numbers and basically due to being busy with work. I was happy and besides if the birding is slow then Portland offers stunning scenery, especially when sunny. Saw first willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap of the year. Went to Lodmoor as things were slow and saw first swallows of the year as well as singles of sandwich tern, reed bunting and cetti's warbler. When i got back to the obs and ventured round huts and took photos of a chiffchaff fluttering on the ground unperturbed by me. Pleasant evening talking to Peter Morgan, Ruth and Kevin(?) and Richard Ford and witnessed the (or a) little owl calling from the top of the telegraph poles in the dusk.

chiffchaff

April 7th

Glorious day and exciting as it was as in Peter's words 'the best day of spring so far'. Haven't been lucky in my visits to Portland to witness a decent 'fall' of migrants so seeing the bushes full of birds was very satisfying. Highlights were a decent view of a grasshopper warbler, black redstart, pied flycatcher and first whitethroat of the year. Amazing to see the willow warblers hungrily feeding unfazed by humans with big camera lenses. The bill ended up being filled with 'grockles' so not many birds down there but did get good views of redstart and wheatear.

Redstart at the bill before the masses arrive. Later a redstart and pied flycatcher were ringed at the obs.

Obliging willow warbler in the bushes near the huts