Another CES

SATURDAY 12th JUNE: The day dawned with a light cloud covering and a gentle wind - ideal day for ringing. Ed and I had two trainees with us today and they were greeted by some good old 'bread and butter' birds.
Although not vast numbers of birds were trapped in our line of nets through mixed scrub, we ended up with 14 species, ten of which yielded juveniles.

In no particular order the youngsters were - a Garden Warbler, 2 Blackcap, a Chiff, a Long-tailed Tit, 2 Dunnocks, a Robin, a Greenfinch, a Chaffinch, a Blue Tit and 4 Great Tits. These are fairly representative of what breeds in our little one acre patch, situated as it is in a busy country park. Only young Whitethroat was missing, although we know that there are some 1J's about (just out the nest).

The highlight of the day was a Red Kite over the top of us at 08:30, half way through the session. DK took a rather good photo of it and we may be able to add it later.
DK's shot of today's Red Kite - wing tags indicate it was taken to W. Yorkshire in 2000 as a chick from the Chilterns programme - or hatched there [Right pink, Left orange]
Meanwhile ...
A different sort of 'kite' soon after - from the local airstrip

The full total was 17 new and 11 re-traps:
"Whoops. Dead end!" Juvenile Blue Tit.
Blue Tit (1)
Gt. Tit 1 (3)
Juvenile Long-tailed Tit. Note reddish-purple eye ring
Long-tailed Tit 1
Chiffchaff 1
Blackcap 2
Garden Warbler 3 (1)
Whitethroat 1
Male Reed Warbler - 2nd calendar year. Note dull eye colour.
Reed Warbler 2
Blackbird 1
Robin 1 (1)
Juvenile Dunnock showing 'orange' gape flanges
Dunnock 2 (2)
Chaffinch 1
Greenfinch 1
Bullfinch (2)
Male Bullfinch in 2nd calendar year (re-trap)

The oldest birds today were a male Dunnock ringed as a 3 (1st yr) in August 2006 and a male Garden Warbler ringed as an adult in May 2008. The juvenile Blue Tit was ringed in a box elsewhere in the park , whereas the Great Tits all came from a nearby box.