One curtain goes down as another goes up

Today was our last session of the post breeding passage season at Belvide--and what a brilliant season it's been!! I will post a summary table soon but for now, several records have been broken and the team members have had a really enjoyable time. Good company, good birds and plenty of activity to help the trainees move forward have all played into ths positive set up.
Today's catch was pretty good at 40 new birds but I guess it's testament to the great season we've had that this signalled the end. Of the 40 new birds, 20 were Chiffchaffs--expected at this time of year as they are one of the last warbler species to move down to spend the winter in southern Europe ( actually many stay on here especially if it is a mild winter).
We had a celebratory al fresco breakfast of bacon and sausage rolls finished off by some superb Millionaire's Shortbread made by the fair hand of Ben--I'm still feeling the sugar rush as I type......

Just ready for the rolls!!

Over the last week we have raised the curtain on our thermal imaging season--of which much more later. Last night we ventured out for just a couple of hours to test some new equipment and were very pleasantly surprised by the number of birds we saw-and ringed! We estimated around 40+ skylarks of which we ringed 4; a couple of Meadow Pipits of which we ringed this one:-

Perhaps best of all were the dozen or so Grey Partridge we found in just one field. This is good evidence for the farmer that his methods are helping this threatened species. We managed to ring 4--which may not seem many but in the context that fewer than 100 are ringed in Britain in most years--it's a great score for one night in one field.

This bird still has quite a lot of juvenile feathers and the lack of a dark brown horseshoe shape on the belly probably means its a female.

We are setting the nets for the influx of Redwings ( a thrush species from Scandinavia and points north and east) which reports suggest is gaining momentum--more later.

Finally from 13-30 October several team members -along with invited guests from around the country will be on the annual ring trip to Vilamoura and Olhau in the Algarve--I'll try and get some reports to the blog from there