Migration is so exciting!!

 August is advancing and it's fascinating every time we set up at Belvide to realise the scale of the movement of migrants as they embark on their epic southward journey--what a priviledge!!

Our start times are early and to be honest the bright sunshine doesn't do us any favours as it shines on the nets making them visible to the birds. On the flipside however, it provides us with some wonderful sunrise views like this.....

Having said that the sun is no friend, we nevertheless have had some great catches and so far into August we have ringed over 700 birds from all our sites. Most of them have been migrant warblers so I thought I'd simply provide a gallery with notes of some of the birds we ring.

This is one of the small 'leaf warblers'--the commonest one of at Belvide is the Chiffchaff of which this is a nice example. They are difficult to distinguish from Willow Warblers but although there are some definitive pointers in the hand, 'Chiffies' are generally a bit smaller, duller and shorter winged that Willows.

Although this looks similar it's one of the bigger 'Sylvia' warblers--it's a Garden Warbler and is probably the least well marked of any warbler.

This is another of the Sylvia warblers and it's a Common Whitethroat. You can see the white throat but the most obvious ID feature is the chestnut areas on the wings,

This next bird is pretty nondescript but it's a real prize given we only catch a couple on average each year. This is the third one this year, and it's a Grasshopper Warbler

As you can see they are pretty sombre looking--but this next view really helps.....

The group of warblers they belong to all have rounded tails. The group are called 'Locustella' as they tend to have a song similar to grasshoppers/locusts, and are more often heard than seen.

Finally for now, there is a group of smallish brown birds called 'pipits' and one of them which is a long distance migrant is the Tree Pipit. We had heard a few calling as they do on migration and fortunately one popped into a net...

For now, I'll leave you with the picture because in a few weeks time a close relative-the Meadow Pipit will be passing through so I'll go over their ID features when I can compare them.