Ringing at Linford Lakes

Hello

A small and very busy ringing team led by Kenny Cramer experienced a bumper ringing session on Friday at Linford Lakes, Milton Keynes, catching an astonishing 251 birds of twenty species. Nearly all these were new birds and the majority were young birds hatched this year with warblers dominating the early morning and then the tits finding the mist nets in the latter part. The warblers were made up of forty-five Blackcaps, twenty Garden Warblers, twenty-one Reed Warblers, ten Sedge Warblers, six Common Whitethroats, a Lesser Whitethroat, six Willow Warblers and forty Chiffchaffs. The tits were made up of fifty-two Blue, eighteen Great and two Long-tailed. Other birds included six juvenile Goldfinches, two Treecreepers, a juvenile Goldcrest and three Great Spotted Woodpeckers with other birds including Blackbird, Song Thrush, Dunnock, Wren and Robin.

Back to today (Sunday) and birds at Pitsford Reservoir this morning included the male Common Redstart still, two Red-crested Pochards, two Common Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper, a Redshank, a Great White Egret and a Hobby, all centred around the Scaldwell Bay.

Two juvenile Common Redstarts were at Summer Leys LNR today near to the main car park and a Greenshank was present before flying off west; a Whinchat was found next to the River Nene 100m downstream from the iron bridge below Great Doddington near to the sewer works.

An Osprey fished successfully at Ravensthorpe Reservoir today and Harrington Airfield hosted two Common Redstarts and a Wheatear.

Ten Spotted Flycatchers were the star birds at Stanford Reservoir today plus a Common Sandpiper and  eight Shelducks.

Regards

Neil M

Juvenile Goldfinch courtesy
of Michelle Sawbridge-Praties.

Lesser Whitethroat courtesy
of Michelle Sawbridge-Praties.

Juvenile Chiffchaff courtesy
of Tony Stanford.

The ring on this adult
Black-headed Gull having
a scratch confirms that this
bird is 26 years old!