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 made two visits to Portland and later to Lodmoor and or Radipole and was able to catch up with some of the spring migrants. Here in a photo taken in spring 2014 a group of birders are scanning for seabirds/passage migrants at the Obelisk at Portland Bill. On my last visit I saw Great and Arctic Skuas, Manx Shearwater, Common Scoter, Whimbrel and Sandwich Terns passing this point as well as the commoner or resident species like Common Guillemot, Razorbill, Puffin, Shag, Gannet, Fulmar and Kittiwake.

The area round Mordon Bog in Wareham Forest is a favourite of mine and although it hasn’t delivered many new birds for my year list recently, birding here is always a pleasure. Dartford Warbler, Woodlark and breeding grebes and ducks on the nearby lake are always nice to see and a heard only Cuckoo added enjoyment. I will have to leave it until my return from the Alps to see Hobby and Tree Pipit though.

Spring ringing at Durlston has always been a hit or miss affair. Unlike Portland migrants seldom seem to linger and we get far fewer birds than in Autumn. Various hypotheses based on the geographical positions of the two headlands have been put forwards. A small number of Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps have been trapped as well as the five species shown in this post. This Lesser Whitethroat was ringed on 21/4/14 and was retrapped almost to the day and presumably breeds somewhere at Durlston.

Common Whitethroats are as the name suggests, a much commoner birds with anywhere from 50 -100 pairs in the Park. Young birds have dark eyes but by the spring both second-calender year birds and adults have the same eye colour. A few can still be aged on the colour of the outer tail, white in adults, fawn coloured in second year birds, as having a complete moult after breeding these will be the same feathers that they migrated with in the autumn. The dark grey head is indicative of a male but many intermediates between this bird and the brown head of a typical female occur.

Garden Warblers belong to the genus Sylvia along with Common and Lesser Whitethroats (actually they are not warblers at all but babblers – but that is a different story). Unlike their congeners they undergo a partial moult post breeding and both adults and young undergo a complete moult in Africa. Thus adults are abraded when they migrate to Africa in autumn but both adults and second year birds are pristine on the return, as can be seen by the fresh pale tips to the primaries, secondaries and tertials and so cannot be aged.

I was pleased to ring this female Common Redstart on the 23rd of April as we seldom trap many in the spring….

….but far more rewarding was its the capture of its cousin, a female Black Redstart. This was the first Black Redstart to be ringed at Durlston and the first I have seen in the hand. Common Redstarts breed in mature woodland, our migrant birds are probably heading for Wales and NW Scotland. Black Redstarts however are seen in the UK as winter visitors, summer visitors and passage migrants. They prefer rocky outcrops, cliffs, abandoned buildings, industrial sites etc to breed but are nowhere common. A pair has bred on the cliffs at Durlston for years but are never seen away from the immediate area. It is far more likely that this bird was a passage migrant.