Busy!

I was ringing at the Obs this morning and became quite busy as I was ringing on my own, although I'm not complaining! It was a different morning to yesterday with full cloud cover and it was virtually calm, although there might have been a breath of wind from the southeast.

The vis was a good deal lighter today and I did wonder whether it was murky in the bay, but the set of nets at this particular location is close to the coast but the sea isn't viewable from where I ring. The vis this morning consisted of 13 Alba Wags, 217 Meadow Pipits, three Starlings, a Golden Plover, three Chaffinches, 14 Greenfinches, five Reed Buntings, two Grey Wagtails and three Skylarks.

 Meadow Pipit

Greenfinch

A few grounded migrants were evidenced by seven Blackbirds, two Goldcrests, ten Long-tailed Tits and a Stonechat. A few Pink-footed Geese were arriving, perhaps 250, and were dropping into the farm fields to the east. No Sparrowhawks this morning but a Kestrel kept stirring the Mipits up!

 Long-tailed Tit

As I said before the ringing kept me busy this morning and I ringed 46 birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Meadow Pipit - 25 (there were some large birds amongst the sample this morning including one with a wing  of 87 mm, perhaps suggesting Icelandic origin for some of them)
Reed Bunting - 2
Blue Tit - 3
Greenfinch - 6
Dunnock - 1 (1)
Blackbirds - 2
Goldcrest - 1
Long-tailed Tit - 5
Chaffinch - 1
Robin - (1)

 This Greenfinch has been feeding on Rose hips.

Reed Bunting

Interestingly I controlled a Meadow Pipit (D784905 anyone?) and this is the first one ever controlled by the ringing group in the 31 years of its existence and after processing 2,341 Mipits! It is on IPMR now and it will be interesting to see where it was from and how recently it was ringed. If I was a betting man I would put money on it being from Walney! When I find out I will let you know.