Record breaker!!

Morning starts are now 06.30 as autumn comes on--and a happy band of old timers plus Emma, turned out this morning feeling none too hopeful after yesterdays downpour and further overnight rain. There was still dampness in the air as we opened, and an initial scan of the nets as we did so revealed............nothing!
However, things began to improve and by 09.00 we had amassed a creditable catch of 64 new birds!Of these a remarkable 42 were Blackcaps! 8 Chiffchaffs, 1 Goldcrest and 2 quite late Reed Warblers were the only other true migrants.
The Blackcap shown below was a pretty significant bird:-

We christened this bird 'Blackcap 700'-- because it was just that--our seven hundredth Blackcap since the season started on July 2nd--remarkable!! Just to put this in context, in the last two years we had what were record years for Blackcap--with around 350 each year. Up to then our best year since starting in 2007 was 185. Looking at the reports from other ringing stations in the country with similar stories, it seems that Blackcaps have had a brilliant breeding season--helped possibly by a big influx from the continent. We hope we come across some British ringed birds in a couple of weeks time on our annual ringing trip to the Algarve in Portugal. This is a major wintering place for Blackcaps as they feed on the many berry bearing plants available through the winter.

The next Blackcap picture is useful for illustrative purposes. All nestling Blackcaps have brown caps no matter if they are male or female. Then during the first couple of months after fledging, males grown in black cap feathers and females grow in brown ones. Sometimes its very easy to age males as birds of the year as some of the brown juvenile feathers haven't been completely moulted out--as shown beautifully by this juvenile male Blackcap:-

Will the Blackcaps still be coming through on Saturday??