Another big day for the group!!

 While I was away in Edinburgh visiting friends and Kev was still on Bardsey island the group members were busy racking up a fantastic number of newly ringed birds over the weekend. There are far too many to go into in detail so here are a few headlines:-

Pete ringed 28 in Chillington, the team ringed 62 at Belvide, Gareth ringed 38 at Dairy Farm, Sam 40 at Ashwoods, Ben an astounding 188 at Witches Oak--oh and Pat ringed 2 at his house--but they were Siskin.

In total that's an astonishing 358 new birds over one weekend--perhaps Kev and I should stay away more often.........

Most of the birds were migrants, with the most numerous being 140 Blackcap, 40 Chiffchaff and 24 Reed Warblers. So a massive WELL DONE !! and thanks from Pete and me for this superb effort.

Here's a few picture snippets from this total......

I know I've posted several pics of Kingfishers on here but they are stunning and this one gave Gareth particular pleasure at his site.

At Sam's session at Ashwoods Garden Centre, he ( as always) ringed loads of Blue Tits--but there's usually something interesting in the catch--like these two Goldfinches. The right one is an adult bird showing the red/white/black facial pattern. The bird on the left is a juvenile and will grow the adult head pattern over the coming weeks as it learns to look after itself.

This is a tail of a Reed Warbler, showing growth bars or fault bars. We are pretty sure that these differences in the appearance of parts of the tail are caused by different materials from food being used to grow the feathers. We sometimes call them fault bars because often one of the areas is weaker than the rest of the feather and the feather often breaks along these areas.

The Belvide team is out again in the morning--more news after that.....