The last ringing session reported on here was a month ago, but we have not been idle in that time. We have in fact been busy. Too busy, it seems, to keep the blog up to date, so many apologies!
Since the 15th August we have added 329 records to our total for the year.
Below is news of the first two activities after the 15th, on the 17th and 22nd August covering 83 encounters.
17th August
We started with a brood of four sand martins ringed on the 17th August. This was the last brood for this year, bringing the total number of pulli ringed to exactly 500. Doug has been working tirelessly monitoring the nests and we have submitted data for nest records for all these broods to the BTO nest record scheme. This was a gigantic effort in monitoring, ringing and inputting and submitting the data. There is an excellent summary in the previous article, which includes the birds mentioned below.
A fascinating start to this project and we are already looking forward to next year!
22nd August
An early start on a beautiful day weather wise, saw us set nets again in the reed areas near the Discovery Hut at the Wetlands. We caught a total of 79 birds, the majority of which were reed and sedge warblers. We had very few retraps, perhaps suggesting that birds were already on the move to their wintering grounds and that these were recent arrivals at the Wetlands.
The birds were
Species New Birds Subsequent Encounters
Blackcap 1
Blue Tit 3
Cetti's warbler 2 1
Chaffinch 1
Chiffchaff 9
House Sparrow 1
Reed Warber 25 2
Sedge Warbler 28 3
Willow Warbler 1
Wren 2
 |
| Three of the team of five |
The chaffinch was a bird which hatched this year and was undergoing its post juvenile moult. The blue head feathers identifying it as a male are starting to come through replacing the brown juvenile feathers.
 |
| First year male chaffinch |
One of the Cetti's warblers was very young.
Another interesting and extremely successful session.
