Phragmites des joncs

For those of you who don't speak French (and that includes me), Phragmites des joncs is French for Sedge Warbler. Now, I haven't gone all 'continental' on you, it is just to celebrate the fact that this morning at Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park we caught a French ringed Sedge Warbler! It will probably take a while for the details to come through on where it was ringed, but as soon as they do I'll let you know.

Sedge Warbler

As you will have gathered I was out ringing at Fleetwood Marsh NP this morning and the 4.30 a.m. meet was a shock to the system. With me was Craig and Ian, and I must congratulate Craig on gaining his C permit! If you're reading this Craig I'm expecting you to get out there and ring lots of birds!

Reed Bunting

We put three nets up totalling 140 feet in an area of willow scrub and reeds. We ringed thirteen birds and retrapped two and the new birds/retraps were as follows:

Sedge Warbler - 4/0
Whitethroat - 3/0
Dunnock - 1/0
Reed Warbler - 4/1
Reed Bunting - 1/0
Blackbird - 0/1

Reed Warbler

The retrap Reed Warbler was originally ringed here on 24th July 2006 and interestingly it has never been retrapped in the intervening time.

Whitethroat

There was a northerly movement of Swifts and hirundines this morning and we probably had about 16 Swifts, 80 Swallows, 15 Sand Martins and 10 House Martins head north. Driving away from the ringing area we had a female Whinchat, but there we no other grounded chats such as Wheatear.

Back home I checked my moth trap and all I had were single Hebrew Character and the Garden Carpet below. At least the Garden Carpet was a new species recorded for the year.


When I got home I had received a notification from the BTO of a Jay recovery. We ringed it aged '3', which means it was hatched in the calendar year of ringing, at Clifton Hall on 30th November 1996 and it was found freshly dead, 'taken by a cat' in Clifton village on 11th March 2010. This means that it wasn't far short of its 14th birthday. The longest lived Jay on record in the UK was 17, so our bird was a fair old age.