Seawatching for a couple of hours from first light saw counts of 202 Sandwich Tern, 160 Kittiwake, 38 Common Tern, 31 Gannet and 20 Common Scoter south along with four Arctic Skua, two Storm Petrel, two Manx Shearwater and single Arctic and Little Tern with two Great Crested Grebe on the sea.
As the day warmed up, checking the sunny and sheltered side of the Entrance Bushes paid dividends with the discovery of an immature Pied Flycatcher, the first since April 2019 and only the 45th site record. It was accompanied by at least 13 Willow Warbler, all bar one juveniles, with plastic song from several of them. Other migrants included single Whinchat, Wheatear and Sedge Warbler, all on Warren Point.
In the estuary Sandwich Tern numbers peaked at 224, including 40 juvs, with the juvenile Arctic Tern also returning over high tide. Other counts included 717 Oystercatcher, 343 Curlew, 226 Redshank, 63 Ringed Plover, 62 Whimbrel, 33 Dunlin, 21 Sanderling, 10 Mediterranean Gull, eight Greenshank, five Bar-tailed Godwit, four Grey Plover, three Common Sandpiper and single Knot, Turnstone, 1cy Yellow-legged Gull and the Dark-bellied Brent Goose.
The majority of the birds were flushed around midday by a juvenile Marsh Harrier which flew low over the Bight from the east before circling high and heading SW. A juvenile Peregrine was considered less of a risk by the majority of Oystercatcher at least.
Other Wildlife: A good day for Orthoptera with a macropterous male Roesel's Bush Cricket, the fifth of the year, alongside several Mottled and Lesser Marsh Grasshopper along the estuary bank. A Mottled Grasshopper, caused some excitement, the worn white-tipped antenna suggesting Rufous Grasshopper, sadly it was not the first site record of the latter since 1881.
Other records included a Hairy Rove Beetle Creophilus maxillosus, new for the Warren, searching out fly larvae in the remains of a Herring Gull bird flu victim, several Pouting Woodlouse-fly Rhinophora lepida, a Brown Argus and several moths including Jersey Tiger, Brown-tail, Silver Y, Mullein Wave and Least Carpet.
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