A Few Juvs

As I have touched on before it has been a disastrous breeding season for a lot of open nest species and we are seeing this reflected in the ratio of juvenile to adult birds that we are catching for ringing. At this time of year we should be catching large numbers of juveniles compared to adults, but this isn't happening. Whether it will pick up later on as some birds try again, only time will tell and we will be able to tell through our ringing studies. 

Ian and I had a very quiet ringing session in one of the reedbeds this  morning when the time of year and conditions should have produced a good catch. We processed 8 new birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Robin - 1
Reed Warbler - 4 (2)
Whitethroat - 1
Wren - 1
Willow Warbler - 1
Sedge Warbler - (1)

 Juv Whitethroat

Out of the 12 birds trapped for ringing this morning 8 were juveniles, which is a better ratio than of late, and hence the reason for the title.

 Juv Willow Warbler

I suppose the most noteworthy sighting of the morning were the first Tree Pipits for the autumn for Fleetwood Bird Observatory in the form of two calling birds heading south. The only other 'vis' was 7 Swallows south and the only other species I noted in my notebook was a calling Whimbrel.

So it was a quiet morning with a few juvs around and I'm hoping that if the weather improves we might be able to have a ringing session at the Swallow roost this evening.