Jolly Boys on Tour

 Apologies for the lack of posts recently but four of us plus four from other teams made a last minute decision to continue with our planned, annual ringing trip to the Algarve at a well-known golf venue-Vilamoura. This was our 15th visit, during which time w have worked closely with both the Portuguese ringing scheme and the authorities of the Parque Ambientale. Our results are demonstrating what an important area the Parque is for migrant birds to stop off and refuel before flying across the sea to spend the winter in Africa.

I won't go into great detail here, but the following table will give you an idea of the importance of the area via both the numbers of birds we ringed, and the range of species. Ben was in the vanguard and managed two days of ringing--the follow-up team managed another 6 full days-after spending a good day and a half clearing out the two years growth of brambles and other vicious plants which had obscured our netting sites;

My first time on the brush cutter--Simon/Scott-please come back next year!!

 So 8 days of ringing produced:-

In short almost 1300 birds of 51 different species!! What a great effort--and worth all the faffing about with testing and passenger locator forms ( what a nightmare they are..)

We had a national rarity in the third ever Common Rosefinch ever ringed in Portugal ( our group ringed the first two about ten years ago). It's probably one of Europe's most boring looking birds in juvenile plumage-as this one was; although the bright scarlet plumage of adult males is stunning--

One other new ( non bird ) species we saw for the first time were a couple of wild boar--you can just about make it out in the picture

They can be quite aggressive when startled or when protecting young--and they can easily demolish mist nets without blinking so we will need to keep an eye out for these over the coming years.

I've decided not to put any more text--rather just show you some pictures of the birds we caught which you may not be too familiar with:-

Adult male Bluethroat

Melodious Warbler

Juvenile male Ortolan Bunting

Quail

Male Spanish Sparrow

Subalpine Warbler

Blue Headed Yellow Wagtail

Wryneck

So we all returned safe, tired and very happy--ready to continue with Autumnal ringing projects back home--more of which soon.

Kevin is out on a small island in Shetland for the second time this year--he's putting in a lot of graft but the strong wind and heavy rain are thwarting his efforts. However, he's still a couple more weeks to go and he'll have support for the last week from son Gareth when he joins him--good luck both--I'll post any results they get.