After all the hard work at Priory, and with the vegetation starting to come green, we set about erecting the CES line of nets to catch some early birds. Most likely, we will repeat this in another ten days time, before giving it a rest for three weeks to allow the Sylvia warblers to get established.
We caught, but did not ring, this 2CY female Bullfinch with moderately severe 'leg mange' [Knemidokoptes spp. ] This is the first time we have seen this in this particular species, it being rather more common in Sedge Warblers and Chaffinches.We did manage to trap just 16 birds of 7 spp. as follows (new/retrap):
Wren 2/1, Dunno 0/1, Blabi 1/2, Chiff 3/0, Bluti 0/1, Greti 1/2, Bullf 1/1.
The female Blackbird weights were up (117/118) with BP2 but the male was lower at 89 gm. Two of the Chiffs were females fresh in - the other being the male that sings non-stop from the Locust tree in the centre of the patch. The lone female Blue Tit was probably the oldest bird today, as it was hatched in May 2007.
1 comment:
Great unusual record of Willow Warbler from Utsira on re-migrating 863 km SSW to Bedford :-)
Some pictures from the Ringing Station at Utsira: http://picasaweb.google.com/atgrims/Merkeskogen#. And a Birding Utsira set on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17853411@N00/sets/72157594195373001/
Best regards
Atle Grimsby, Utsira
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