Eight members of the group undertook a mist netting session on 12th January. Our activities were targeted at birds using the reeds as a roost site as we had done previously on 10th December (see report below).
The team assembled at midday and eight nets were set around the Discovery Hut to catch birds during the afternoon before our roost endeavours were to begin in earnest. A variety of species was caught and of particular note was a group of eight long-tailed tits, six of which were retraps and four of these were previously ringed at the same session suggesting that outside of the breeding season they stick together in groups.
A song thrush, as always, was good to catch and then we put up a net next to the Discovery Hut pond where a couple of teal had been spotted. One bird went in to the net fairly quickly but unfortunately got out before we could collect it. However, a moorhen soon followed and this was keenly inspected by the team since they are not frequently ringed here.
We caught a female kingfisher, which was a retrap and had been ringed here a few weeks ago, and then as the light began to fade we saw a barn owl quartering the nearby reed beds. We put out a net in a likely spot for the owl and then another couple of nets in the reeds for the roost birds. A kestrel was seen heading off to investigate the owl and on the next net round although we hadn’t caught the owl we had caught the kestrel. It was a female and was a new bird, not one of the chicks from a nestbox at the wetlands that we had ringed last summer.
By now it was 1615 and the first of the reed buntings going to roost was caught. As the light went down over the following 50 minutes we caught 25 more reed buntings. In contrast to the long-tailed tits earlier, only one of the reed buntings was already ringed and this bird was interesting because it was a control ie a bird that had been ringed elsewhere. We subsequently found out that it had been originally ringed 40km away in November 2021 at The Fleet in Dorset and so is at least 3 ½ years old.
The song thrush was aged 5. The wing shows the yellowy triangular marks of the old greater coverts in contrast to the smaller more buff marks of the new greater coverts. The tail feathers are fairly pointed which is typical of many age 5 Passerines and this bird shows the beautiful breast typical of this species.
This moorhen was hatched last year and so is aged 5. The white chin feathers and the pointed primaries are diagnostic of this age class.
The broad bands giving a mottled pattern on the mantle feathers are diagnostic of a female in this kestrel and the broken bars on the tail feathers show this to be an adult female (the tail colours in this photograph are influenced by artificial light).
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