The Purple Patch is Over

Despite no blog posts for five days I have been out and have seen some birds. Best were 2 local Hobbies on Thursday - including my first from our house - and 2 of the many thousands of E Devon Red Kites on Wednesday. Visits to the Burton/Cogden patch were dead quiet. I tried a Red Kite vigil on Wednesday evening, but knew all along that I had missed the boat by several hours. Never mind though, because there is always a view...

Looking some 15+ miles SE: the greedy bird-magnet that is Portland Bill. I have hardly ever seen it as clearly as this; normally there is a haze or shimmer that makes it all blurry, whereupon it becomes just that little bit more distant and less enviable...

My most recent walk around the patch was in the blazing sun on Friday afternoon. Again, I took some photos...

Regular readers will know that I am a dragonfly dunce, but female Broad-bodied Chaser is just about within my compass.

"Oh, sweet painted lady..."

Significantly, no birds of note at all. It's now the time of year when locally I would expect pretty much nothing for the next few weeks. That expectation is based on experience in E Devon. Perhaps W Dorset will surprise me, but I doubt it. Mind you, everywhere is not the same. As I type birders at Spurn have been doing a bit of viz-migging today. Birds heading S so far include an Alpine Swift, a Red-rumped Swallow and four different Red-footed Falcons. Yes, four. A first-summer male, an adult male and 2 adult females. And yes, that's right, Spurn isn't normal. Normal right now is a lot of barrel-scraping and Lepidoptera.