Wednesday 29th August 2012
	New discoveries today included a Fea's Petrel past Galley Head, County Cork, a Forster's Tern off Soldier's Point, County Louth, an Arctic Warbler on Fair Isle, Shetland, a Red-rumped Swallow at Frodsham Marsh, Cheshire, and Wales' first mainland Greenish Warbler on Great Ormes Head. Lingering rarities seen today included the Long-billed Dowitcher in Gloucestershire, Lesser Scaup in Somerset and single Glossy Ibises in Cambridgeshire, Pembrokeshire and County Wexford. In between the seabird news, the National channel featured a White-winged Black Tern, a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, a Red-necked Phalarope, a Common Rosefinch, three White Storks, four Wrynecks, four Spotted Crakes, seven Pectoral Sandpipers, nine Barred Warblers and 13 Lesser Snow Geese. The aforementioned seabird tally was eight Great Shearwaters, 10 Cory's Shearwaters, 198 Balearic Shearwaters, 21 Sabine's Gulls, 11 Leach's Petrels, ten Long-tailed Skuas and ten Pomarine Skuas. Significant late news concerned a dark morph Eleonora's Falcon in Sussex on 19th August. Found by a visiting Dutch birder familiar with the species, it didn't linger as it flew east over Boreham Street.
-  Will Soar, RBA