Fri 2 Sep to Tue 6 Sep

Tony Taylor reports a record 65 Manx Shearwaters were caught at the Old Light colony on the night of 1 Sep. On the night of 2 Sep the team moved up to North Light where they saw two Storm Petrels and ringed four shearwater chicks. Migrants seen on 2 Sep included and two Teal on Pondsbury and four Redpolls.

On 4 Sep Richard & Rebecca Taylor saw a Sanderling. Other birds noted were three Reed Warblers and a few Wheatears, Whinchats and Chiffchaffs, along with several Goldcrests, a Blackcap and a Pied Flycatcher.

Migrants still around on 6 Sep after the recent bad weather included two Reed Warblers, three Redpolls, two Willow Warblers, three Chiffchaffs, one Spotted Flycatcher, a single Pied Flycatcher, one Grey Wagtail, a few Swallows, eight Wheatears and three Whinchats. The day’s highlight was the ringing of a Manx Shearwater chick in one of the nestboxes installed earlier in the year at the Old Light colony. However, the parent birds had accessed the nestbox via a natural burrow at the back so that the egg had not been laid in the box!