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Friday 25 August 2017

25th August – A compensatory Nightingale

On the night of 24th/25th, Richard & Rebecca Taylor, Rosie Hall and Warden Dean Jones visited the North End, where they caught 18 Storm Petrels (six of which were not sound-lured), including one bearing a ring from elsewhere and one carrying food. They also ringed 14 Manx Shearwater chicks and two adults.

Tony Taylor ringed a first-year Nightingale in Millcombe during the early morning of Friday 25th August, which, as he says, "was some compensation for missing a great night". Many regular Lundy birders will heartily agree as this is the first island record of Nightingale since one was ringed on 1 May 2010. Prior to that, one was seen one in St John's Valley in May 2005, whilst there were two  occurrences in 1996, in May and June respectively. This iconic, charismatic yet elusive species was a more regular passage visitor to Lundy in earlier decades of the twentieth century. Sadly, it became a real rarity as the UK breeding range contracted progressively towards the south-east, though doubtless some go undetected, given their typically skulking behaviour, especially in autumn. Tony's was the tenth Nightingale to be ringed on Lundy.

[NB this entry was updated on 29 August to include mention of the 2010 bird, inadvertently excluded from the original text.]

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