Raptor Fest - Day Two, 20th September

Or the alternative title could be 'wot...no dog shit!'

Joking apart it was delightful to be birding and ringing in the centre of the Fylde on a glorious morning without the continuous disturbance by bird scarers. We put eight nets up in a broadleaved plantation on Rawcliffe Moss.

At first we thought the vis would be good because quite a bit of stuff got on the move at first light, but my mid-morning it had dried up. A quick phone call to Ian on the coast confirmed that passage was light over the coast as well even though the visibility was good over Morecambe Bay. Some of the vis totals included 3 Grey wagtails, 75 Meadow Pipits, 45 Chaffinch and 8 Siskins.

The ringing was quite good and it was what I would call a 'grappling' morning as we had to grapple with a few lively birds. Grappler number 1 was the following beasty below.

Grappler no. 1 aka Jay

Grappler numbers 2 and 3 were two Great Spotted Woodpeckers and one of them is shown below.

Grappler no. 2 or was it 3?

The rest of the catch was a nice mix including 8 Chaffinch, Reed Bunting, 6 Meadow Pipits, Coal Tit, Linnet and Treecreeper.

Meadow Pipit - we had a good selection of juv.'s & adults

I mentioned in the title that today was 'raptor fest day 2' and that was because again we had a nice selection of raptors; no Honey Buzzards though! We had 3 Common Buzzards, 4 Kestrels, Marsh Harrier and a male Peregrine carrying prey. The Marsh Harrier was a long way off and viewing it you had to look into the sun. Later we had another Harrier that looked smaller and showed a white rump (possibly); but like the Marsh Harrier it was a long way off. It was probably a Hen Harrier as there has been one around for a while on Rawcliffe Moss, but we'll never know.