The Bill Boys

Gwent Ornithological Society’s Spring Escape to Portland Bill Bird Observatory

My inspiration for the title.

Some invitations in life simply cannot be refused.

A weekend in one of Britain’s most iconic birding locations.
Spring migration in full swing.
The chance of scarce migrants dropping into the mist nets.
Sea watching from dramatic limestone cliffs.
And, perhaps most importantly, three solid days of grown men of a certain age taking the mickey out of one another.

So it was that on Friday 24th April 2026, after travelling since the deeply offensive hour of 4.15 am, I rolled into Portland Bill Bird Observatory at around 7.30 am to join the Gwent Ornithological Society’s elite away squad or as I would soon christen us, The Bill Boys.

Waiting for me were Dave Brassey, Chris Ball, Bob Potter, Steve Butler, Steve Davies, Ian Smith, Chris Perry, Keith Roylance and John Walsh — all looking surprisingly fresh considering they had travelled down the previous day and, naturally, had already squeezed in a twitch for the showy Bluethroat.

I had not.

This was a fact they seemed keen to mention at regular intervals.

Still, this was my first stay at Portland Bird Observatory, and excitement levels were high. Portland in spring is one of those places every birder should experience at least once, a narrow slab of limestone jutting defiantly into the English Channel, acting like a giant avian service station for weary migrants crossing the sea.

For centuries, Portland has been carved, battered and shaped by both man and nature. It's famous pale Portland Stone built much of London, including St Paul’s Cathedral, while the windswept Bill itself has long been a place where sailors feared the savage tidal races and hidden rocks offshore. It is dramatic, rugged and faintly apocalyptic, which makes it an ideal birding habitat.

Arrival Day — Cliffs, Corpses and Little Owls

After breakfast, we headed out for an early stroll around the Bill.

The weather was glorious: blue skies, bright sunshine, but with that distinctly coastal wind that slowly removes moisture from your face like a human dehumidifier.

The cliff tops were alive with seabirds. Razorbills buzzed in like feathered missiles, Guillemots packed the ledges shoulder to shoulder, Fulmars glided effortlessly on stiff wings, and a Raven landed nearby and gave us an impressively theatrical cronking display, sounding like it had spent forty years chain-smoking.

A curious croaking Raven.

Portland Bill is not a place for the faint-hearted. The cliffs plunge dramatically to the churning sea below, and as we approached the MOD compound, our birding serenity was interrupted by the sight of two Men in Black-style security personnel standing beside an abandoned bicycle perilously close to the cliff edge.

Within minutes, police vehicles began arriving.

It appeared there were fears someone may have fallen or jumped to their death.

A little further on stood the iconic old lighthouse, resplendent in its red and white stripes and positively glowing in the morning sun.

The current lighthouse, built in 1906, replaced two earlier lights after mariners complained that Portland’s previous attempts at not killing sailors were somewhat inadequate. Standing there with the beam towering above the boiling sea, it was easy to understand why this lonely point has such a magnetic atmosphere.

Portland Bill Lighthouse

From there, we checked the nearby quarry, a reliable haunt for Little Owls.

Reliable, of course, in birding terms, means “they were here yesterday.”

No owls.

Just a lot of us peering optimistically into holes in limestone while trying to look like we knew what we were doing.

Chesil, Lodmoor and the Return of the Owl

We later ventured to Chesil Beach, that astonishing 18-mile shingle barrier that looks like someone tipped the contents of the world’s largest gravel driveway into the sea.

Birdwise, it was fairly subdued, though Bar-tailed Godwit, Ringed Plovers, Sandwich Terns and Little Terns gave us enough interest to justify the trip and burn off the Greggs food we had enjoyed.

Bar-Tailed Godwit in flight

Lodmoor produced a bit more life with a pair of Cattle Egrets, a stately Great White Egret, Grey Plover, screaming Swifts overhead and, for me, a rather obliging Hairy Dragonfly that posed nicely for the camera — always appreciated when birds are being awkward.

Some of the Bill Boys

Back in Portland Bill in the late afternoon, we gave the Little Owl quarry another go.

This time, success.

One of the tiny charismatic gremlins was standing in a gap between the rocks, soaking up the evening sunshine with the sort of expression that suggested it was deeply unimpressed by ten middle-aged men staring at it.

The Portland Bill Little Owls

Later still, as I wandered back past the quarry in the lowering golden light, I struck gold — both Little Owls perched together outside what I suspect was their nest crevice.

A magic moment.

The sort of encounter that makes you involuntarily whisper “oh you beauties” to absolutely nobody.

Gullageddon at the Monolith

I made my way down toward the monolith where the sea had suddenly exploded into life.

What appeared to be a massive bait ball of Herring had sent hundreds upon hundreds of gulls into a feeding frenzy. The water was alive with plunging birds, screaming chaos and wheeling white bodies.

Gannets hurled themselves from the sky like feathered javelins.

Every few seconds, I convinced myself a skua would surely appear.

It did not.

This is a recurring theme in my birding life: I spend thirty minutes expecting something rare, see nothing rare, and leave with a sore neck.

Gannets and lots of Gulls

An adult Gannet

Pub Therapy and Bunk Bed Negotiations

That evening, we headed to the Eight Kings pub, where, over good food and a few drinks, the real essence of any GOS field trip kicked in.

Stories flowed.
Birding disasters were relived.
Optics were debated.
The world was put to rights.

There was laughter from start to finish.

These are the bits that matter as much as the birds.

Back at the observatory, my roommate for the weekend was Bob Potter, who kindly agreed to share as long as I took the top bunk.

This sounded reasonable until I realised the ascent required the upper body strength of a Royal Marine and the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast.

I had a little bit of time to do some astrophotography. This is a multi-shot star trail image.

Day Two — Sunrise, Olympus Snobbery and Camera Catastrophe

I awoke at stupid o’clock courtesy of a Great Tit joining the dawn chorus directly outside the window.

After what can only be described as reverse free-climbing K2 while trying not to topple the bunk bed and crush Bob beneath it, I grabbed the camera and headed outside.

And what a decision that was.

The predawn light was fantastic.

The pre-dawn sky was ablaze with orange, crimson and violet, the observatory silhouetted beautifully against the horizon. Down by the lighthouse, the sun finally cracked the sea line and delivered one of those soul-resetting moments that make sleep seem wildly overrated.

Sunrise at the lighthouse

I returned for breakfast feeling utterly zen.

While waiting for warden Jodie to hopefully produce something scarce from the mist nets, I placed my Olympus camera on the lounge table. I noticed, with no small amount of pride, that there were now three Olympus cameras sitting there together.

A rare and uplifting sight.

Too often, these moments are ruined by photographers' fly-tipping Canon gear all over the place.

RSPB Arne and the Wrong Camera Incident

The plan for the day was RSPB Arne,  Dartford Warblers, Tree Pipits, perhaps a White-tailed Eagle if fortune smiled.

Chris Perry, Gwent’s county recorder and now my designated chauffeur, drew the short straw of being my travelling companion.

A Greggs stop en route was, naturally, non-negotiable. At this point, I genuinely feel the company should sponsor this blog.

My only image from Arne.

Arne looked magnificent in the sunshine, and within moments of leaving the car park, a Robin perched obligingly.

Perfect.

I raised the camera.

Nothing worked.

No focus.
No buttons.
No response.

I had picked up the wrong Olympus camera from the breakfast table.

For a few seconds, my soul left my body.

I marched back to the car and deposited the imposter camera before returning armed only with binoculars and some jokes from the boys about me now being an Ultra Birder.

For a wildlife photographer, birding at Arne without a camera feels like attending your own wedding in slippers.

Naturally, a Dartford Warbler promptly perched up exactly where I had photographed one last year.

Chris, sensing I was on the verge of a minor breakdown, kindly offered to drive me all the way back to Portland to retrieve my own camera.

An offer too generous to refuse.

It was during this extended round trip that Chris truly earned his stripes, because he now found himself trapped in a moving vehicle with me and my relentless conveyor belt of stories, anecdotes, observations, memories and generally unnecessary information.

To his credit, he remained composed, although on several occasions he had the expression of a man silently calculating whether escape through the driver's door at 40mph was survivable.

Fortunately, on our return to the observatory, my Olympus camera remained on the table, and I had in fact picked up the warden's camera by mistake.

The Pulpit, the Photographers and Ringed Turnstones

Back in Portland, we stopped near Pulpit Rock, where Chris spotted two suspiciously intent-looking chaps.

“Birders,” we thought.

We scrambled over the rocks like two ageing commandos whose knees had definitely seen better days.

They were not birders.

They were photographers.

Within minutes, I was deep in an unexpectedly intense conversation with one of them about the virtues of Olympus cameras as though we had known each other since primary school.

Chris eventually rescued me by mentioning two Turnstones on nearby rocks ( or did he rescue the other chap?)

Excellent.

An exit strategy.

We clambered down toward the birds and, as they skipped neatly between the spray, Chris noticed one was ringed.

This immediately became Mission Impossible: Portland Edition.

After much crouching, squinting and muttering, I managed a series of sharp images showing both colour tags and the metal ring — the sort of niche triumph only birders can get irrationally excited about.

Operation Sardinian Warbler

Then came what may well have been the highlight of the entire trip.

On the walk back, Chris and I devised a plan.

A wicked, entirely unnecessary, but irresistibly funny plan.

Using a little AI assistance and with the observatory staff now complicit, we manufactured a fictitious tale that the warden had caught a Sardinian Warbler in the mist nets and brought it up specially for me to photograph.

We even produced photographic “evidence.”

This is an AI-created image. The original AI image was very realistic-looking 

Then we waited.

For hours.

Like two deeply immature Bond villains.

Eventually, the rest of the GOS crew returned from Arne.

Chris Ball casually asked how their day had gone before we unveiled our bombshell.

The reaction was magnificent.

Shock.
Disbelief.
Jealousy.

They had managed distant White-tailed Eagle views and a few Dartford Warblers.

I, apparently, had just photographed a Sardinian Warbler in the hand.

For fifteen glorious minutes, we spun the tale ever further, including the minor embellishment that it may have been Portland’s first ever.

Chris P could barely look anyone in the eye.

Eventually, I cracked.

Confession delivered.

Abuse received.

Laughter all round.

I took some serious stick for that one, entirely deserved, but to their credit, the Bill Boys saw the funny side.

More Than Just Birds

A male Kestrel showed well in front of the lighthouse

And that, really, was Portland.

Yes, there were seabirds.
Yes, there were migrants.
Yes, there were Little Owls, Dartford Warblers, dragonflies, ringed Turnstones and endless scanning for elusive skuas.

But what made the weekend memorable was the company.

Birding with Gwent Ornithological Society is never just about compiling a list. It is about shared jokes, endless banter, stories in the pub, communal optimism over every bush, and the sort of easy camaraderie that makes even the quiet spells enjoyable.

One of the regular sea-watchers at the observatory told us it had been the funniest stay he’d ever witnessed there.

I can believe it.

I had an absolutely brilliant time with this bunch of lads, welcoming, knowledgeable, generous and relentlessly good company.

October’s return visit cannot come soon enough.

The Bill Boys will be back.

Epilogue

I am waiting for an update on the ringed Turnstone. I have been informed it was ringed/tagged in the Netherlands.

Chris and I also saw a Rock Pippit that was ringed. It is suspected that this is one of the Rock Pippits that has been ringed by the observatory.

Rock Pippit ( ringed).