Taking The Michael

You will remember from my last post the fact that Ian and I had a poor ringing session at Rawcliffe Moss last weekend as very few birds were around. Well, I think they must have been taking the pi** because when I went to feed yesterday there were swarms of them! I had 280 Tree Sparrows, 30 Chaffinches, 8 Yellowhammers and good numbers of Tits.

As I walked down the track I had a pair of Grey Partridges walk almost all the way to the bottom in front of me. They took flight when a female Sparrowhawk shot past. I don't think the female Sprawk would have had a go (now a Gos might!), but the Partridges weren't taking any chances!

Back at the car I had a couple of Buzzards soaring and calling over 'Treee Sparrow Wood' and when I was back at the feeding barn an adult male Sparrowhawk blasted past with it's 'ground contour' radar switched on hopping over fences, and other lumps and bumps, with only inches to spare.

 Sparrowhawk - female

I forgot to mention that at weekend I started work on some replacement boxes for a couple of sites; one for Pied Flycatchers and the other for Tree Sparrows. So, hopefully by next weekend I will have 16 resplendent boxes waiting to go up.

 Timber cut up and ready to assemble

Five 'blind' boxes requiring sight!

We have received the details of a few controls from the BTO. A Greenfinch we controlled at Rossall on 4th October 2010 had been ringed at Walney Bird Observatory on 26th September. See below.

One of the other ones was a Swallow we ringed at Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park at the roost there on 2nd August 2010 and it was controlled at Icklesham, East Sussex  417 km to the southeast on 10th September 2010. Again, please see below.