It's Spring!

It's officially Spring because we had our first ringing session back at the 'obs' and what a funny morning it was weather wise. Craig, Ian and I met at 6.15 a.m. under cloudy skies with a ground frost. By the time we had got the nets up the skies had cleared and some 'vis' started to trickle through. A fog bank then rolled in from the south and any passage stopped, it then cleared and passage started again and then the fog bank rolled in again and we packed up and went home!

The first bird we had this morning was a male Peregrine that was heading south and that would be the only raptor of the morning. I mentioned that we had some vis, but it was only light and we recorded (all heading north) 2 Greenfinch, 10 Meadow Pipits, Alba Wag, Skylark, 4 Siskins, 2 Grey Wags and a Reed Bunting. There was probably a little more than this but this is what we recorded between net rounds, cups of coffee and chatting!

We processed 9 new birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Blue Tit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 3
Pied Wagtail - 1
Great Tit - 1
Wren - 2
Blackbird - 1
Robin - (1)

The cracking male yarrellii that we caught this morning