Monday 1 August 2022

Bird Ringing Saturday 30th July

Hi all,


It's hard to believe we have not run a "proper" ringing session at Linford for over a month and a half, but today we properly went for it and it's fair to say the results surpassed expectation!


Although we didn't manage to get all the nets up that we (or more accurately, I...) wanted to due to the essential gardening involved, we handled a total of 161 birds of 22 species, 152 of which were newly ringed.


Warblers led the charge with 30 blackcaps taking up the lion's share and the remainder of the warbler list comprising of 16 reed warblers, 21 chiffchaffs, 2 sedge warblers, 14 garden warbers, 3 lesser whitethroats, 7 common whitethroats, and a single willow warbler.


We also encountered a tit flock which boosted the totals by 16 blue tits, 11 long-tailed tits and 8 great tits with one of the long-tailed tits turning out to be a retrap of a juvenile ringed in 2018!


Other notable captures included 2 goldfinches, a treecreeper, a goldcrest, a green woodpecker and a kingfisher.


Catches of this size cannot be managed without an excellent, experienced and dedicated team, and today I was fortunate to have Keith, Helen, Nick W, Michelle, Beth, Nick C, Claire, Sue and Andrew on hand to assist with lifting, holding, carrying, extracting, ringing, scribing, chatting and generally keeping each other awake! I know Jasper was also sending his good luck vibes from afar, which is scientifically proven by the numbers. Heaven help us the next time he is actually here in person!


Cheers,


Kenny