Another cracking morning!!

 We had a very good morning on Wednesday, ringing over 100 new birds, and we followed it up this morning with another 70 new birds- most of which were again migrants.

However, it's always superb to catch one of our most colourful resident birds-the Kingfisher. We normally catch a few each year but this is our first so far this year:-

 This is a male bird as can be seen by the black lower mandible of the beak. Females have more or less orange on their lower bill. This bird is in adult plumage as can be seen by the 'blueness' of the plumage-in juvenile birds there is a distinct tinge of green in the head, wings and back. Actually it's a tad disappointing that we haven't yet caught a juvenile bird this year--does it mean they haven't bred this year? Only time will tell......

It's the end of July and we see the first hints of migration happening. Willow warblers are one of the first species to start moving south this early and we have been catching small numbers suggesting birds are indeed on the move. This morning we caught only two--and both of them were juvenile birds--having fledged in the last few weeks.

Apart from the pristine plumage, the thing which gives it away as a juvenile is the amount and intensity of the yellow on the underparts, from the chin to the base of the undertail. Adult birds at this time are either in moult and can look a bit 'tatty'--or if they have completed their moult the chin and throat are yellow but the breast and belly get progressively white towards the rear. 

We have ringed about 100 new reed warblers this season at Belvide, and 30+ retraps which we have ringed in previous years. Most of these are a couple of years old but this morning we re-caught a Reed warbler carrying ring number Z201275. A quick check on the national database shows that we initially ringed this bird as an adult female in July 2014. This means that she was at least one year old at that time so had completed at least one return trip to southern Africa on migration. She is now at least eight years old, which is the oldest Reed warbler we have recorded at Belvide--and she must have clocked up in excess of 150,000 miles in migration flights alone--incredible!!

Pete and Paul have been re-establishing our ringing effort in the Chillington reedbed. Back in the day we used to ring there often but not for many years. So it's great to be back and after only a few visits we have had an interesting 'control'--ie a bird ringed elsewhere, by someone else and recaptured by us.

Reed warbler AYD9213 was ringed in north Staffs at Betley Mere on 10th August 2018--as a juvenile bird-- probably having bred there or nearby.

The bird was re-caught by Pete on 24th July this year at Chillington--probably having bred there since it's a bit early for this species to be migrating. It's a good idea for individuals to set up breeding areas away from where they were raised themselves because this ensures mixing of their genes.