While the cat's away........

It ALWAYS happens--as soon as I take a holiday away from the reserve, something good turns up!! In fact I'm delighted--especially for the guys in the team who put the hours in; the more so to cover when I'm away. This time TWO special birds turned up-along with continuing big numbers of common migrants.
On Saturday 14th September, the team was met by pretty low temperatures after a clear night. A good catch of 82 new birds included yet another 51 Blackcaps plus a sprinkling of other migrant warblers. However, the star bird was this year's first Grasshopper warbler. We don't even manage one of this species each year, so every time we do ring one, it's a very special day. The photo isn't the best but it shows the salient features.

You can see the short round wings and relatively long rounded tail, a few speckles on the breast and a mottled back. This species comes in a variety of base colour phases--this is the commonest with an olive brown hue. Others have are greeny, some yellowy and others greyish. One of the reasons few are caught is that they are not that common--but another is that they are incredibly skulking and tend to run around on the ground rather than fly. Therefore they often evade capture unless either the nets are set very low, or they decide to fly up for some reason.

The following Monday, an extra session resulted in a more modest catch of only 29 birds--but if ever the phrase quality over quantity applied then it was today. Over the last 15 years of ringing at Belvide we have only previously caught one Cetti's warbler--today brought our second.

This species may not be a stunner in the looks department--plain brown above, grey beneath, with short wings an a longish round tail-but it is part of an interesting story. It's essentially a Mediterranean species which has been steadily colonising northern Europe during the last 50 years or so. There are healthy breeding populations not too far away from Belvide but apart from occasional wintering individuals they haven't yet bred here. We think the habitat looks just right but clearly THEY don't--but we keep everything crossed that they will become a breeding species at the reserve.

The team turned out on Wednesday catching another very respectable 73 new birds, including 27 Blackcap and 23 Chiffchaff, until the rings ran out !! Pretty sure that won't happen again.

Lastly, I missed yesterday's session as I helped with a ringing demonstration at Ladywalk--but the stalwart team ploughed on with another really good session at Belvide with another 67 new birds, including 28 Blackcap ( over 600 of these since 2nd July!!)--and this beauty.....

It's great to be back--let's see what the last few sessions of the season bring....