Sunday ringing

Hello

Another warm day but plenty of cloud cover and much softer winds made it much more bearable.

A hot and sticky ringing session at Linford Lakes, Milton Keynes provided 151 processed birds of nineteen species and like last week a nice variety too! The most common bird encountered was Greenfinch with lots of youngsters bringing the day total to twenty-eight and Chiffchaff was the second most common encounter with twenty-six of them hitting the mist nets. There were also nineteen Blackcaps, sixteen Great Tits, eleven Blue Tits, nine Garden Warblers, eight Reed Warblers and eight Common Whitethroats.

Quality captures included two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a juvenile Green Woodpecker, three juvenile Lesser Whitethroats and two recently-fledged Cetti's Warblers. A Goldfinch and a Treecreeper added further variety.

Birds noted on-site included a Cuckoo and two Oystercatchers.

A parallel ringing session was also managed at Pitsford Reservoir today yielding eighty-nine birds of fourteen species, the majority being newly-ringed birds. Here the most prevalent species was Blue Tit with twenty-eight birds and Sand Martin with twenty-seven birds, the latter total including nestlings too. Other birds included a re-trap Reed Warbler first ringed in 2020, an adult Lesser Whitethroat, six Sedge Warblers and singles of Great Spotted Woodpecker, Reed Bunting and Goldfinch.

Birds on-site included two Great White Egrets and a Green Sandpiper.

Five Black-tailed Godwits were found at Clifford Hill Pits this morning and at Bucknell Woods there were two Spotted Flycatchers and the butterflies included Purple Emperor, Purple Hairstreak and Silver-washed Fritillary.

Four juvenile Grey Partridges were noted in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton today and a Little Owl was vocal in the village during the early hours.

Regards

Neil M

Lesser Whitethroat.

Common Whitethroat.

Green Woodpecker.

Above images courtesy of
Kenny Cramer.

Sand Martin ringing courtesy
of Jane Neill.