Sanity Prevails

After my inglorious trip to Fleetwood yesterday I regained my sanity this morning after an uneventful but peaceful ringing session on the moss whereby the only person Will and I met during the couple of hours was George the gamekeeper. We all had a laugh together about a local chap who got married and changed his name to that of his new bride who just happens to come from a wealthy family. We all agreed that the chance would be a fine thing but that we’d rather be poor and happy, as George drove off in his ancient, creaking Daihatsu and Will and I settled down on our plastic chairs then tucked into our breakfast of lukewarm Thermos coffee with cheese & tomato and peanut butter sarnies respectively.

We took a chance on last night’s weather forecast that suggested marginal ringing speeds of 10mph and met at 6am to a clear, breathless morning. Once again visible migration was quiet with birds high overhead. Moving wagtails numbered one or two albas and 3 Grey Wagtails, with a noticeable but meagre movement of about 35 Meadow Pipits heading south. Tree Pipits featured again with at least 5 overflying birds, one or two dropping in to the netting area but today we failed to catch any.

Once again Chaffinches proved the most numerous but somewhat inconspicuous migrant as reflected in our catch. We think that many drop into the north end of the plantation before working their way through to our nets, and whilst their origins are something of a mystery at the moment, they appear to be birds of the British race with a preponderance of females. We have now caught 70 Chaffinches here in the last 30 days, a movement of Chaffinches a little earlier and stronger than expected. Here’s a picture of a Chaffinch that didn’t want to leave us.

Chaffinch

We caught 39 birds today, 35 new of 25 Chaffinch, 2 Wren, 2 Willow Warblers, 2 male Blackcaps, 1 Dunnock, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Whitethroat and 1 Garden Warbler. We had 4 recaptures with 1 Dunnock, 2 Whitethroat both adult males with completed moult and a female Blackcap that was first captured on 22 August.

Willow Warbler
Blackcap
Garden Warbler

Other birds seen this morning: at least 4 Grey Partridge, 1 Kestrel, 10 Linnet, 18 Goldfinch, 5 Reed Bunting, 6 Tree Sparrow and 3 Skylark, the first for some weeks and maybe the beginning of the true autumn birds.

Tree Sparrow
Skylark
Here's a good quote for all ringers and patch workers: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein.