Early Weds

A couple of nets up at the crescent, on the north-east side this time. Target - more Reed Warblers. As it turned out, I caught 11, only one of which was a juv! 7 birds were retraps and today most of the adults were at least 4 years old; they had that lovely mahogany eye colour. The sexes were 50:50.


This was the best brood patch today.

I also caught a young Chiff that was starting its PJ moult (body feathers only at the moment), a 3J Blue Tit that we had ringed in Box 19 (1 of 6) and a juvvy Song Thrush (a second was in the net but it got out). A decent two hour (three if you count setting up and taking down, etc) session. An added bonus came when six (yes, 6) Little Egrets flew almost over my head; they came from the P/L hide area and made off downstream. [DK says 1 remained in the SW corner, too]

From my base at the end of the spit, I could hear the Grey Wags reported at the Mill weir / Slalom (13 counted, per Bedsbirds)