Mixed Fortunes And Some Of It Was Yellow

Another visit to the 'obs' this morning for Ian and I, and it was very similar to yesterday in terms of the conditions and the birds recorded. At first light we had misty clear skies (if that makes sense) and it was calm. The 'vis' moved in fits and starts and we recorded 34 Lesser Redpolls, 3 Goldfinch, 6 Alba Wags, 65 Woodpigeon, 3 Carrion Crows, Reed Bunting, Golden Plover, Grey Wagtail, 224 Meadow Pipits, 2 Linnets, 3 Greenfinch and 39 Siskins.

The 'yellow' in my title refers to the two Yellowhammers we had this morning, which are fairly scarce on the coast on migration. Of course at my ringing site on Rawcliffe Moss they are common and as you know I get decent numbers at my feeding station and several pairs nest. We had a grounded male Yellowhammer, that moved off with some Meadow Pipits, and then we had a female going over. Nice!

Grounded birds other than the Yellowhammer included 5 male Wheatears, 3 Goldcrests and a stonking male Blackbird. I say 'stonking' because an adult male in the spring looks fantastic. We ringed 21 birds as follows:

Meadow Pipit - 15
Blackbird - 1
Greenfinch - 4
Goldcrest - 1

 Meadow Pipit

Back home my moth trap held just 2 Hebrew Characters and I forgot to mention yesterday that there were 4 Hebrew Characters! I have caught a Pug a couple of nights running but it escapes before I can identify it!

The forecast is looking good for the coming week so hopefully I will be able to fit some work around ringing, I mean ringing around work, and get out a couple of times before the dreaded 'w' word.