The summer-like weather continues, which makes for a lovely day out - just not if you're a bird ringer!
Weather: beautiful blue skies and unbroken sunshine, with a slight SE wind.
A bit of a breeze with bright sunshine is about as bad as it gets for mist netting. Sunlight reflects off mist nets which makes them a lot more visible to birds, but add to this the slight movement caused by even a gentle breeze, and they look about as obvious as a brick wall!
Another down side to this weather at this time of year is the numbers of migrants that make landfall. When there are light winds and a high pressure, migrating birds (i.e. warblers, thrushes, chats, etc) fly high and straight over the south coast of the UK. Only when there is cloud, ideally coupled with some light rain, do any numbers of migrating birds become grounded.
Still, 9 birds of 5 species were processed;
1 Song Thrush
3 Blackbird (2 retraps)
2 Dunnock (retraps)
2 Wren (retraps)
1 Great Tit (retrap)
A male Blackbird being ringed and measured - Stafford Marsh March '12 (c) Doug Rudge
The session leader totting up the final totals (it didn't take long!) - Stafford Marsh March '12 (c) Doug Rudge
Weather: beautiful blue skies and unbroken sunshine, with a slight SE wind.
A bit of a breeze with bright sunshine is about as bad as it gets for mist netting. Sunlight reflects off mist nets which makes them a lot more visible to birds, but add to this the slight movement caused by even a gentle breeze, and they look about as obvious as a brick wall!
Another down side to this weather at this time of year is the numbers of migrants that make landfall. When there are light winds and a high pressure, migrating birds (i.e. warblers, thrushes, chats, etc) fly high and straight over the south coast of the UK. Only when there is cloud, ideally coupled with some light rain, do any numbers of migrating birds become grounded.
Still, 9 birds of 5 species were processed;
1 Song Thrush
3 Blackbird (2 retraps)
2 Dunnock (retraps)
2 Wren (retraps)
1 Great Tit (retrap)
A male Blackbird being ringed and measured - Stafford Marsh March '12 (c) Doug Rudge
The session leader totting up the final totals (it didn't take long!) - Stafford Marsh March '12 (c) Doug Rudge