Fat Acros and a Burnished Brass

Yesterday evening Graham, Ian and I had another session at the Swallow roost. It was a glorious evening with clear skies and it was calm. Walking to the pools it was evident that there were quite a few Willow Warblers about as we kept pushing birds from clumps of Bramble and Reeds.  We also had a nice flock of about a hundred Goldfinches feeding on Thistles.

The flushing theme continued when we got to the pools as we flushed a Little Ringed Plover from the edge of the pool. The muddy edge to the pool looks fantastic, but it is impossible to view it until you're upon it!

We set the usual two nets up and waited. Waiting for the Swallows to come in we managed to ring eight Sedge Warblers and five Reed Warblers. Just like previous recent visits some of the Reed and Sedge Warblers were carrying large amounts of fat.

The only raptors we had were a single Buzzard and Kestrel, and unfortunately no Hobby come in to hunt the Swallows! The roost was greatly reduced in size, 3-400 birds, probably as a result of the previous two days rainfall and consequently we only ringed 38 birds.

As it was such a good night I ran my moth trap last night but I have to admit my catch this morning wasn't what I expected with just five Light Brown Apple Moths, seven Large Yellow Underwings, a Common Wainscot, Burnished Brass, Common Rustic and two Shuttle-shaped Darts.

Burnished Brass - above & below. Apologies for the unnatural setting!

It's going to rain up here overnight and into the morning, so no birding for me, although I would have struggled as I'll have a late night tonight as I'm off to see Black Star Riders. If you haven't heard BlackStar Riders before click HERE Yes, they do sound like Thin Lizzy and that's because they were the latest incarnation of the mighty Lizzy before changing their name to BlackStar Riders. Their music isn't overly complicated, no fancy time signature changes, just pure and simple rock and roll|! And that's Scott Gorham you can hear riffing away! A mighty band!