Really glad we went for it.

It's always tricky when the weather forecast is a bit dodgy--do we postpone or run the session. Much scanning of a range of forecasts--looking at the strength and direction of the wind--when will the rain come through etc etc. So it was yesterday when all forecasts were predicting quite strong winds for this morning--with lighter winds on Sunday. What to do--postponing often risks some team members not being able to come. However, the direction was due to be SSW--whereas for Sunday it was NW. The layout of our site and especially the arrangement of the thick hedgerows means that most of the nets are sheltered from south-westerlies but not from north westerlies--so we decided to go.

First net rounds suggested that we had made the wrong decision, with only a few birds caught. But things gradually improved and in the end we ringed a very respectable 115 new birds. The drop off in reedbed warblers is significant with only 8 sedge and 7 reed warblers. However, blackcaps are still piling through with 51 new birds ringed. 10 chiffchaffs is about standard for late August but 1 each of garden and willow warblers was disappointing.

However, some of the resident breeding birds provided interest for both visitors and trainees:-

Blue tits are obviously very common garden birds and are strangely easy to catch. These two show one of the more obvious differences between adult ( ie birds hatched before this calendar year) and juveniles ( hatched this year). The bird on the left is the adult with a completely blue cap and white cheeks. The bird on the right is a juvenile with the brown nestling feathers on the cap gradually being replaced by blue feathers--and the face and cheeks still have some of the yellow nestling feathers not yet replaced.

Many of you will have had robins breeding in your gardens--probably from early April ( or March in warm spring years). The juveniles from those broods will by now look just like their parents in the field although there are subtle differences in the hand. However, this young robin has only recently left the nest, so its parents must have nested a second or more probably a third time this year. You can see that it has started to moult out its nestling speckled breast feathers and replace them with red ones. You can also see the yellow flanges at the base of the beak--called a 'gape' which is used by the parents to target food into the mouth. It gradually disappears after a few weeks of leaving the nest.

We don't catch many nuthatches other than at the feeding station during winter so it was interesting to catch one at this time of year. They are smart birds as you can see:-

I just thought I'd show you an aspect of nuthatch plumage which isn't often seen in the field; the beautiful white spotted brown undertail coverts

 

 

The forecast looks a bit dodgy for next Wednesday so we may be dancing around again--I will post on here if we need to postpone...........