Another milestone reached

After a night of strong winds with some rain, I guess it was no surprise that we caught fewer birds this morning. However, when last evening's catch was added to this morning's we still had a very respectable 105 new birds. This meant that we have passed 2000 new birds since 2nd July--a new record.
The main species were Blackcap 28, Chiffchaff 20, Willow warbler 5, Sedge warbler 4, Reed warbler 2, and with a hint of the on-coming late Autumn, 7 Goldcrests. Special bird of the day was a Spotted Flycatcher-- see below

Like most Spotted Flycatchers ringed at this time of year, this is a juvenile bird as can be seen by the broad buff tips to many of the wing feathers and you can just see similar edges on the upper tail coverts where the tail meets the body.

We often catch 1 or 2 Nuthatches at Belvide, and then mainly at the bird feeding station during the winter months. So far this year at our main ringing site, we have caught 4 Nuthatches --with 3 caught today/yesterday.

The following shots are NOT good pictures of Nuthatches ( see my recent post for a better picture) but these two pictures show you how to tell males from females and this can sometimes be seen in the field--if you are lucky!!

This tries to show the undertail coverts--these form a V shape--the bird on the left is a male and shows these feathers having broad white tips with chestnut bases whereas the female on the fight has white tips but buff coloured bases to these feathers.

Again the male is on the left and shows dark chestnut thighs while the female on the right has no chestnut in this area