24th September

A surprisingly dismal showing today, with pre-dawn showers dropping hardly anything in the way of new arrivals; one-off duff days like this crop up occasionally during any migration season, but three flops in apparently good conditions within the space of a week really does bring home to you - as so many surveys indicate these days - that there simply aren't the numbers of migrant birds about that there used to be. Fair coverage of a good deal of the south of the island revealed no more than a handful of the likes of Wheatear, Blackcap and Chiffchaff, whilst more uncommon fare was all but absent; visible passage was only a little stronger and that involved hardly anything beyond hirundines and Meadow Pipits. With the wind remaining north of west the only reports from the sea were of 4 Balearic Shearwaters, a Great Skua and an Arctic Tern through off the Bill.