This mornings ringing at Radipole was almost called off due to the high winds we’ve been experiencing over the last few days but we decided not to abandon and ventured on. It turned out to be a good morning with 8 birds caught. 4 Coot (1 re-trap) and 4 Tufted Duck (2 re-traps). The two new tufties were 1st winter birds (so 5s in ringing terms) and were both going through some sort of moult. This male shows a lot of juvenile feathers particularly on the chest. These should be mostly gone by now.
This 1st winter female was also going through quit a lot of body moult, as you can see her heads pretty tatty though she has moulted most of here back feathers (as shown in the second picture).
The other two were superb looking adult drakes, this bird in the below photo was first ringed in 2003!
This afternoon was spend chatting to visitors at Radipole and attempting to show them the adult Ring-billed Gull which was around late afternoon until it went off to Weymouth bay to roost at 5pm. Was pretty difficult at times to pick out especially when all the gulls do this!
Did managed another pretty rubbish shot.
Whilst waiting watching the gull from the patio of the Radipole visitor centre this water rail went by at about 50mph as shown by this very ‘arty’ picture.
Almost forgot to mention a coot recovery forward to Terry from Kane Brides (who has a rather good blog - http://birdringing.blogspot.com/) . Terry sent this:
GR26625 W.CP ringed by Luke on 9/01/2011 was seen at Torcross near Kingsbridge Devon on 30/01/2011 this is the first sighting since ringing.
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