August 19th

I spent over an hour at the Patch, Fife Ness, this afternoon – checked over 25 willow warblers, found a spotted flycatcher but no sign of the greenish warbler. I could easily have missed it though, and the weather overnight for the last two days hasn’t been good for a migrant to leave. There were three northern wheatears at Stinky Pool and a fourth at Sauchope. And back on the beach at Sauchope two juvenile yellow wagtails amongst the pied wagtails. Again really shy and retreating back to the airfield as soon as I tried to get within fifty meters. Out to sea there was a steady passage of sandwich terns, a flock of 10 – 20 every few minutes. Their numbers, and also of common terns, are increasing a lot around Fife Ness at the moment.

Two of the many sandwich terns passing Fife Ness today: adult on the left and juvenile on the right (JA)