April Fool

This morning I met up with some of the usual suspects for a trip to Wyke Regis and Portland Bill. I arrived at Wyke Regis around 7.50am to meet Steve and John and then walk out past the Bridging Camp checking all the while for the long staying Richard's Pipit that has been there. We saw no sign and so we continued on out to the back of the Littlesea holiday camp and to try and find the other rarity that has wintered in the area, a rare Hume's Leaf Warbler.

The area of scrub that the Hume's has been favouring

We worked the area for about 40 Min's before giving up and walking back to the cars, again checking for the Richard's Pipit.
We then moved on to meet up with Tim at Portland Bill. Yesterday at the Portland Bird Observatory they ringed 615 birds - an all time record ! Today because of the good weather most of the birds had already moved on. There were a few Northern Wheatears about though.

Another Northern Wheatear

One Northern Wheatear

Also seen was a Rock Pipit of the Scandinavian Race Littoralis - A really smart bird.

Scandinavian Rock Pipit

 We then tried for the Puffins that Tim had seen earlier in the morning, but apart from a few Auks, mostly Razorbills there was little else passing, We did have a flyby Swallow though.
We then tried for the Ring Ouzels that were at Barleycrates Lane, There had been six seen there yesterday and Tim had seen two earlier in the morning, but we were unlucky again !
We then decided to go back to Wyke to try for the Warbler and Pipit again. There was still no sign of the Richard's Pipit at the Camp again so we went on for the Warbler which we heard from returning birders had been seen sporadically. We hung about for about another 45 minutes then Tim and I said we had to go as we both have commitments at home. We walked back past the camp again and were trying one more time for the Pipit when I got a call from Steve that the Hume's was showing. Tim decided to carry on home as he had already seen it so I set off back to the Holiday camp arriving just too late again. I waited for another half hour before realising that I had already overstayed my time and set off for home saying my goodbyes to Steve and John.
A disappointing day for me !