Too Clear?

With a title like that you might expect some sort of theory, or is that excuse, of why we didn't ring much this morning at Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park. As I was pulling on my wellies before heading towards Fleetwood a shooting star streaked across the eastern sky and I wondered whether we would catch or not because of the clear conditions. I met Craig and Ian at 5.15 a.m. and Ian's first words were "it's too clear, it's been one of those departure nights" and he was right.

Fuelled by the birders eternal optimism we persevered and erected 260 feet of net. As we expected we only ringed 6 birds and retrapped (in brackets) 2 as follows:

Whitethroat - 2
Sedge Warbler - 1
Reed Warbler - 1 (1)
Swallow - 1
Willow Warbler - 1
Wren - (1)

 Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

The birding was similarly quiet. As we had a coffee before doing our first net round 16 Alba Wags flew in to feed on the pool from their roost and shortly afterwards we had 11 Snipe head northeast. Two Tree Pipits went over and a 'pinking' Chaffinch gave the morning an autumnal feel.

Ten Swallows showed some interest in the 'play-back' we used and 6 Swifts chased each other high in the sky. The pools were equally quiet with only 15 Coots, 14 Mallards and a lone male Pochard.

We start back at Rossall School from next weekend so hopefully we'll have a good autumn at the 'obs'. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!