Our annual round up gives extra practice at........?

...... ageing and sexing -----of ringers.........

Friday night saw most of the group assemble at our local pub for a very pleasant evening of chat, drinks and a meal. It also provided some of our newer trainees with an invaluable opportunity to practice ageing and sexing on the assembled group.

Most noticeable was the importance of head plumage and degree/extent of complete head moult in accurately ageing the trainers. Some other plumage details also helped with identifying and ageing--such as M and S jumpers and Primark stretch denim jeans ( one of man's greatest inventions). Juveniles of the group were most obvious by their lack of supplementary optical aids and by the length of time between toilet visits........Females were very obvious by their enhanced facial features and a general reddening of the area around the base of the bill. For some unknown reason females don't seem to undergo the same extensive crown moult and consequently female heads generally seem bigger and more bulky than their male counterparts.

Seriously though, we had a great time looking back over what was a very successful year for the group. A few highlights:-

6000+ birds ringed in this country with almost 2000 ringed abroad
Almost 400 Sedge and Reed warblers ringed
Around 850 Blackcaps ringed--double the previous record
400 Chiffchaff, 19 Jack snipe, 58 Grey Heron chicks, 40 Skylark, 5 Grey Partridge, 200 Starlings and 572 Storm Petrels ringed along with a good number of over 60 species
Good numbers of waders and other superb birds ringed in Portugal.

While it's great to catch so many good birds its also really important for us to provide our great group of trainees with opportunities for them to gain the experience needed to gain promotion to qualified ringer status. We are all so pleased at their commitment and progress.

On that same theme we also looked ahead at opportunities for 2020 and as well as continuing to develop our base sites there are some opportunities for expansion to new sites in the offing, and some exciting opportunities for trainees to expand their horizons and gain valuable experience in other places and with other experienced ringers. The planned trip to the Alderney Bird Observatory in May is already fully booked, and notifications were put on the table about possible trips to Norway, Mongolia, Russia; and the dates were almost ready for confirmation for the annual trip to Portugal.
It's great to see novices develop and it keeps some of us old lags on our toes to keep up with them--long may that be the case. 2020???--bring it on!!