Jen is up and running!!

 It's been a pretty poor week for ringing with awful weather affecting most of our planned sessions. However, we did manage to squeeze in a thermal imaging session midweek at a local farm, a new feeding site, and a Starling roost at Belvide last night.

The roost of many thousands of birds has almost broken up completely now as the reedbed has been almost flattened by the large numbers. We had almost given up when a few birds dropped in and we ringed a useful 16 Starlings and 1 Reed Bunting--a very manageable catch for a small team including a trainee.

The most interesting/exciting event this week has been that our newly qualified ringer Jenni has now got her rings and ringing kit together and has started on the exciting business of ringing on her own. This is a really interesting time for any ringer--but we think few ringers at her stage of development would have such species as :- Woodcock, Grey Partridge, Skylark and Great Spotted Woodpecker on their totals list in their first week!! We have some very good sites which new ringers can take on and further our operation. Well done Jen and here's to the future.

Here's a picture of Jen holding her first solo Woodcock:-

They are brilliant birds and seem to have arrived from Scandinavia in big numbers.

Like most ringers, Jen has also started ringing in her garden, and one of the first birds she ringed was this splendid adult male Blackbird:-

It's obviously a male due to it's black plumage and an adult because ( among plumage features) it has a completely yellow bill and complete yellow eye ring.

I hope that we will get some ringing in over the Christmas period--which I'll post on here as soon as possible.

Here's wishing all of our readers a Merry Christmas in these very strange times and a hope that 2021 will bring us all better times. From all of the team here at Belvide Ringers