Tuesday 7 August 2012

A Smartie, a Few More Adults and a Control

Yesterday evening Ian and I had another ringing session at the Swallow roost. There seemed to be less birds coming in, perhaps only 600, but we still managed to ring 64. In addition to the Swallows we ringed a juv. Sand Martin, which was the first ringing record for the obs sincce 2006 and the first for this particular reedbed since 1996! As hinted at in the title we also 'controlled' a Swallow; D006608 anyone!

It was also very noticeable that there were more adults in the catch and at 19% this is the highest adult:juvenile ratio since the roost formed a few weeks ago. What this means I am not quite sure. As I touched upon earlier in the week it could mean that the adults are starting to move through now that they've finished breeding. If this is the case I would expect to see a similar percentage maintained over the coming days and hopefully weeks. However, the past few days have been fairly unsettled weather-wise and this usually has the effect of breaking the roost up as departing birds aren't replaced with newly arriving birds. A perioed of settled weather that gets hirundines on the move usually builds the roost back up again, so fingers crossed!

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