Charmouth - Mon 1st Aug

No waders on the river or beach this morning. It was a beautiful morning though and as the sun rose the local pair of Mute Swan were showing off their new addition:

Rain came in around midday so I had a look down on the beach early afternoon. There were plenty of Gulls roosting, washing and preening. A count of 12 Great Black-backed Gull is the most I have seen here this year. 2 Lesser Black-backed Gull were also present including this individual with black ring reference 5AU2, which I will report to BTO/Euring. When/if I hear back from the research project, I'll try to remember to post the details of where the bird was ringed. It will be interesting to see how far this bird has travelled over the intervening period:

Lesser Black-backed Gull - 5AU2

By evening the rain was very heavy and the wind had picked up. I spent an hour on the beach. It was extremely wet and the best I could come up with were a few Manxies shearing westwards at great speed at around 17.45 in the strengthening wind  and by 18.00 with weather conditions deteriorating I could only just see the yellow outer marker Buoy and the passage soon fizzled out.