21st and 22nd August


A glorious day on the 21st with pretty much wall to wall sunshine with a light NW wind which had swung round into the east by the afternoon; landbird passage was still slow with 5 Willow Warblers the only grounded migrants while other counts included the 4 Collared Doves still, 14 Sand Martins, 73 Swallows, 196 Meadow Pipits and single Sparrowhawk and Merlin whizzing around.

Grey Plover,   George Gay


                Some decent wader counts comprised 1,312 Golden Plover, a Grey Plover still, 41 Purple Sandpipers, 28 Black-tailed Godwits, 22 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Whimbrel, 153 Redshank, a Greenshank and an autumn high count so far of 342 Turnstone along with 4 Herons and 2 Red-throated Divers while the one that got away was a large raptor sp. seen over Stennabreck into the sun which was probably a Common Buzzard but views were inconclusive.

                With the wind now firmly in the east expectations began to grow on the 22nd but the fine weather that came with it didn’t equate to many more migrants with 10 Willow Warblers the highlight.   A disappointingly quiet day also produced single Merlin, Peregrine and Sparrowhawk, 33 Black-tailed Godwits on Gretchen and best of all, a good pod of 7 Risso’s Dolphins playing around off the west coast.
Risso's Dolphin,   George Gay

Peregrine,   Simon Davies

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