Wednesday 23 September 2015

Ringing on Saturday

The weather forecast for last weekend went a bit wrong, Sunday was forecast to be quite windy from the west  whilst Saturday was due to be calm, but bright.

Saturday was calm and bright. Sunday started very calm and was overcast but the wind picked up later.

On Friday we worked to clear some vegetation from our net rides and it was obvious then that there were very few birds around, other than a large number of goldfinches. Migrants were particularly thin on the ground with a only a few 'wheeting' phyloscs and one or two goldcrests, but quite a few robins.

robin
 So on Saturday we decided to try a ringing session despite the forecasted sunshine and the lack of any migrants (the clear, calm night with light westerlies would not drop anything new in). As predicted we didnt catch many birds, only 20 in fact. We caught a few robins, goldcrests, goldfinches and a nice juvenile siskin. This whitethroat was our only warbler, it was carrying a lot of fat so was obviously on the move.

migrant whitethroat caught and ringed
There was some vizmig going on, with a few skylarks headed north, a grey wagtail over (always a autumn bird at Druridge) and a few siskins and lesser redpolls moving through or joining the goldfinch flocks.

Car problems have prevented any further visits to the patch.

No comments: