Taking It Easy

After yesterday's 3.30 a.m. alarm call to head off to Merseyside to join Peter and Tineke for a ringing session in the Rimrose Valley (thanks Peter for a great morning), Ian and I had a lie in and didn't meet at the Nature Park until 5.00 a.m. We put up just 130 feet of netting and caught quite nicely.

 Blue Tit

When we arrived over a thosand Swallows were exiting from their reedbed roost and about 4,000 Starlings followed shortly. It was interesting to note as we drove past the 'artificial pools' to our ringing area that 10 Tufted Ducks and 2 Pochard were taking advantage of the queit before before the doggy walkers would descend and push them off onto the main pool.

 Great Tit

There was no visible passage this morning although about 20 Swifts and 4 Sand Martins fed over the pools and later in the morning we heard a Green Sand but couldn't locate it. We processed 31 new birds (recaptures in brackets) as follows:

Whitethroat - 10
Reed Warbler - 6
Sedge Warbler - 3
Reed Bunting - 1
Blue Tit - 5
Willow Warbler - 6 (1)
Great Tit - (1)

 Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

After our ringing session Ian and I cleared a 180 foot net ride in the reeds in preparation for some (hopefully) Swallow roost ringing in the week. A quick look on the pools on the way out showed that Coots have had a good breeding season as 45 birds were present on just the main pool.

Willow Warbler