It seemed as if the wind and rain would never stop and I could imagine the island being emptied of its birds as the days went by. It's fair to say that the weather looked quite promising for American vagrants but it was physically and mentally very demanding to keep on searching in the heavy rain, when you struggle to find even a single Common Chiffchaff. The complete lack of any American passerines in the British Isles and the fact that it had now been eight years since the last New World wood warbler in France, brought me back to earth and made me think that I had no real hope of finding anything unusual.

However, things changed on the night of 25-26 September, as I discovered the calls of an American Golden Plover that had twice flown over my microphone – this, I was very happy with. I decided to focus all my attention on shorebirds and spent 26th looking for the plover on Ouessant.