Ringing at the Wetlands 1st August

A small team of three, Ian, Sue and Robin, undertook a ringing session around the Discovery Hut. We ran five nets – two in the scrub and three in the reeds – and caught 73 birds. Recent sessions in this area have produced a good number of reed warblers and so it continued, with 30 birds caught. Of these we aged 19 as this year’s birds (age codes 3 or 3J), nine as adults (age code 4) and two birds didn’t show sufficient features for us to decide how old they were (age code 2). So there were twice as many young birds as adults and this is what we’d expect towards the latter part of the breeding season when young birds are dispersing. It was good to ring and process a garden warbler and a linnet, neither of which is a frequent capture here.

The garden warbler and the wing of the linnet showing a moult limit which makes this a young bird: the older juvenile feathers (marked) are shorther and darker and are being replaced by the longer browner adult feathers. We caught five willow warblers which showed a wide range of body colouration, from the lovely lemony yellow that is typical of this species to the rather drab buff more typical of their close relative, the chiffchaff, of which we caught nine.

One of the yellower willow warblers.

of the nine chiffchaffs caught, one - the bird above - was a control and had been ringed in Spain. More details of exactly where and when it was ringed when we have them.

This is a wren which is this years bird. The lines on the primary feathers are arraged in neat rows showing that the young feathers all grew at the same time, unlike the chequered pattern in an adult where the feathers have been variously replaced. This bird also shows no white under-tail coverts that would be present in the adult

This is a young greenfinch. The striated breast and belly are typical. The wing shows the pristine feathers of a young bird and the lack of yellow on the primaries tells us that its a female