gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

I don’t like uploading posts out of sequence as I haven’t completed my account of the weekend yet, but a report of a European Bee-eater at Swanage at dusk yesterday sent me hurrying down there for dawn. Vagrant Bee-eaters have a habit of roosting somewhere then moving on within an hour of first light but I was there far too early at 0615 and stood around in the rain for an hour before it was light enough to see. Steve Smith first picked it up over the trees at the Downs car park but it then disappeared, only to be seen again at 0800 over the nearby houses.

This is only the fourth time I have seen Bee-eaters in the UK, a juvenile on Scilly on 12/10 and 15/10/85, a flock of six adults at Durlston on 31/5/97 and today.

A dull and wet morning at Swanage. The Bee-eater first appeared over the trees in the foreground but spent most of its time over the houses left of centre just beyond the park.

Bee-eaters are reasonably regular vagrants to the UK, mainly in late spring, but there habit of moving on quickly makes them difficult to twitch successfully.

Not the best of photos, but then the bird was quite distant and the light conditions were dreadful.