Where are they??

 I'm referring again to Redwings. Team members have again been putting in the hours with little reward--most upsetting has been the lack of flocks flying about. Speaking with friends in Cumbria and the east midlands suggested that for some weird reason, there are lots of Redwing to the north of us but few here or to the south of us--not something that we have been aware of in the past.

However, Kevin seems to be bucking our overall trend and in the last two days he's ringed over 50 Redwing at his Racecourse site, which is within touching distance of Wolverhampton city centre!! At this morning's visit he also had a Blackcap. Well done Kev.

Speaking of Blackcap--we had an interesting report of one of our birds this week....

This is the computer generated report which we get for any ringed bird found again. If you look carefully you'll see that this Blackcap was ringed by us at Belvide, as a juvenile bird on 12th August this year. By now we would expect our Blackcaps to be at or well on their way to wintering sites in southern Europe or North Africa. For some strange reason this bird has flown almost due EAST, and as of 12th October it was caught by a ringer in Holland!! Maybe it's going to spend the winter in northern Europe--but to date most of the wintering birds have been from Eastern Europe---another conundrum for us!!

The season for spending evenings scouring farm fields with our thermal imagers for birds. We have had some success, the most significant being our first Woodcock of the season at Brewood Park Farm. They are wonderful birds...

It's unlikely that you would be able to see this next feature in the field, but one of the ageing criteria can be seen in this next picture. The feathers pointed at are the primary coverts. On all of these feathers of this bird there are small buff coloured tips. This makes this bird a juvenile--had the tips been white, it would have been an adult.

Just before I sat down to write this blog, group member Liz circulated a message from rare bird alert that a flock of 20 Waxwings had been seen at nearby Chasewater. We are now on alert with everything crossed that more will come our way; several of us have got our eyes on some small Rowan plantations because Waxwings love their berries...........