Yet another sunny day, meaning that since arriving there has only been one rainy day, which is quite astonishing. The dry weather obviously makes life easier for the most part, but the well is starting to go down already and we're not even nearly into the summer yet! So, with another day of rather gentle southerly winds and blue skies, we remained hopeful for the arrival of some migrants.

The nets were open at 6:45 at Cristin, a little later than planned due to a failed attempt at ringing Manxies last night... But the garden was quite quiet anyway and a short ringing session of a few hours or so yielded several Blackcaps, Goldfinches, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers.

one of three Blackcaps caught at the Observatory

Elsewhere on the island, bird of the day was undoubtedly a Wryneck which was flushed from the track just below the Schoolhouse. It moved North along the Mountainside and was lost to view as it dropped into thick gorsey cover. Other birds are well into the breeding season, many are feeding chicks, we've had our first Mallard Ducklings and birds are constantly in song. We had some more additions to the year list today, too, in the form of Dunlin, as well as a hotly anticipated Ring Ouzel.

Ring Ouzel over the west side of the mountain

Wheatear passage, as expected, has continued to increase. Today, 88 were recorded, a stark increase compared to 27 yesterday and just ten a couple of days before that! Quite a number of Greenland breeding birds are also passing through now, these will start to outnumber British breeding Wheaters on the island soon.

A Buzzard was once again seen today, and it is the same individual as yesterday, a rather pale bird that appears to be missing a primary feather on its right wing.

Common Buzzard over Pen Cristin

Later in the day, it was time for George's favourite activity, visiting the East Side! We were doing a bit more Chough monitoring, the aim of the afternoon was to find evidence of activity at a certain site that is usually used, but so far this year, monitoring efforts have produced nothing. The visit was very successful and the pair was eventually seen entering the nest site, which is a very good sign that they will at least attempt to breed.

The newly photographed unringed pair near their nest

On top of that, a Chough of unknown sex was seen 'umbrella-ing', behaviour which heavily implies that it is a male bird. The reason this particular bird has confused people trying to determine its sex is that it appears to be of equal, or even of a smaller size to its partner (males are usually larger than females)!
'Umbrella-ing' is a somewhat unofficial term for a display the males do in which they hold their wings out and lightly flutter them. They usually do this when their partners are close by, although the females are usually (almost comically) unimpressed by the effort...

Chough umbrella-ing on the East Side, and giving quite an evil stare

Stonechat on the South End

Other sightings today include: three Gannets, three Shelducks, one Peregrine, 102 Oystercatchers, one Ringed Plover, 9 Whimbrels, eight Turnstones, c200 Kittiwakes, c300 Guillemots, c400 Razorbills, 16 Puffins, one Skylark, three Sand Martins, nine Swallows, four House Martins, two White Wagtails, five Dunnocks, one Robin, two Great Tits, ten Goldfinches and 45 Linnets.

Ringing Totals: Blackcap 3, Chiffchaff 3, Goldfinch 3 and Willow Warbler 2. Total 11 birds of 4 species.