I've been away for a few days ringing at my friend's awesome 'back garden' in western Poland. It's a 10 acre plot that goes down to a willow carr/phragmites reedbed on the edge of a large lake. 1270 birds in 6 days including only ONE blue tit-heaven.
However, back at Belvide for a session today ( Thursday) after a poor-weather postponement from yesterday. We had a pretty good session in the circumstances with 73 new birds with highlights comprising 34 Sedge warblers, 14, Reed warblers, 9 Chiffchaffs, and a few other warblers.
We ringed our first juvenile Blackbirds but didn't intercept the very large tit flock doing the rounds at the reserve. Although catching a net full of Blue and Great tits can be (literally) a bit of a pain--there are usually a good number of 'camp followers' in these flocks -such as Chiffchaff, Willow warbler and Blackcaps. Speaking of which, we haven't seen any evidence yet of Blackcap and other Sylvia warbler passage in any numbers yet. They are typically a bit later than other warblers but I have noticed that observatories have been getting good numbers--wonder why?
Colin
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