It was an absolutely perfect morning for ringing as predicted by the weather forecast!! ( Not often I say that....). I'm so glad we decided to arrange an extra session because we ended with another 146 new birds.
The make up was pretty predictable with 129 migrant birds of which 74 were Blackcaps. We also managed another Lesser Whitethroat, but the picture below records an historic moment:-
These are two Grasshopper Warblers and this is the first time we have ever caught more than one at a single session. We have now ringed 8 of these at a site where we don't even manage an average of one per year. It's going to be interesting scanning the end of year data to see if this is a some local effect or part of a UK wide good showing of Grasshoppers.
My last post showed items about ageing Meadow Pipits. We caught another 11 this morning but with this group was a slightly different specimen. I've mentioned previously that Grasshopper Warblers have 3 variations of base colour--yellow, grey and brown. Meadow Pipits have the same range for some reason. We call them ''colour morphs''. The picture below shows two of these. The right hand bird is the most usual --the brown/buff morph. The other bird is one of the greyer morph birds:-
Some suggest that the greyer birds are perhaps from Iceland--but having ringed several thousand Meadow Pipits in Arctic Norway, I've seen all three morphs up there.
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