Bank Holiday Monday 25th May

A chilly, misty early morning soon transformed into a hot and cloudless sunny day. Fortune also shined on the site in the form of two colour-ringed Sanderling among a flock of 52 feeding around The Bight.  The combinations of ring and flag colours revealed that one (with a green flag) was ringed at Ostgonland, located on the mid eastern coast of Greenland on 18 July 2019.  And the other was ringed at Banc d'Arguin, Mauritania (with a white flag) on 13 Jan 2018, a popular winter destination for this species and for the project.  This bird stayed until at least 23rd.  It was next seen on Nevern Estuary, in south-west Wales on 04 Aug 2019, then back on the same wintering grounds in Mauritania from at least 23 Nov 2019 to 11 Jan 2020.

 
Colour-ringed Sanderlings - Dave Boult

These are the 33rd and 34th individual sets of Sanderling colour-rings read in the field at Dawlish Warren since the first in 2009. See 'RINGING REPORTS' links for details of some of the others.

Also present at high tide, 214 Oystercatcher, 13 Whimbrel, 13 Curlew, ten Shelduck, seven Dunlin, six Ringed Plover, three Little Egret, three Bar-tailed Godwit, two each of Grey Plover, Turnstone and Sandwich Tern, and a Grey Heron.

Apart from just a couple of Black-headed Gull north and a couple of Swallow, there was no passage, and despite the conditions, the only bird-of-prey seen on site was a Buzzard that drifted over.  Nothing unexpected was noted in the dunes, bushes and woodland areas today.

Wildlife news: various butterflies were on the wing in the sunshine including some now tally Brown Argus.