Bloody weather!!

I've mentioned several times in these posts how important the weather is for ringing--and if I'm honest we ringers rarely concede that conditions are 'perfect'. This gives us plenty of opportunities to blame the weather when we fail to catch anything.......

To say that I'm obsessed with watching a range of weather forecasting sites in the build-up to a ringing session would be an understatement. It's quite simple really--I closely follow four or five forecasting websites--then choose the one I like the best--simple!? Such was the case in the build-up to a possible try at the Belvide Starling roost last Sunday. A week before the event, most sites were suggesting rain at the crucial time--but as the week went on the forecasts got better with all of them giving good weather for Sunday afternoon even on the Saturday evening. So confirmation went out and the team assembled as the sky filled in after a glorious morning........then it hammered down until we abandoned our attempt, at which point the rain eased off--too late for a re-think. It's really frustrating when this happens especially when some have driven a long way and others may have rearranged family or work schedules. It really also makes me angry at all the technology forecasters have and still they can get things SOOO wrong. OK-end of rant.

Numbers of Starlings at the roost have dropped off dramatically for some unknown reason and the water levels are getting to be almost too high to get into the site--so when Monday dawned clear and a couple of the team, Kev and Jen were available, we planned a re-run while we could.

Fortunately the weather played ball and we managed a decent catch of 11 Starlings, 5 new and 2 re-trapped Reed Buntings. We set only one net because of the number of ringers available, but such a modest size of catch is really good for trainees like Jen, because it gives them an opportunity to handle all of the birds and spend a bit of time really getting to grips with ageing and sexing these two potentially tricky species. I get the feeling that most group members who have experienced recent roost catches are getting much more confident with these-great stuff.

The moon is beginning to wane, and we are now looking to get back out into the farmers' fields with our thermal imaging cameras over the next few weeks to monitor and (we hope) catch some of the key species roosting/feeding in the fields. Kev is out tonight so I hope to post a report tomorrow--good luck Kev.