Wednesday 30 March 2011

I'd better do some Ringing!

My blogs gone completely off track recently, I’ve blabbing on about birding far too much recently. To rectify this I had a couple of hours ringing at Abbotsbury yesterday morning. Weather forecast was decent with good cloud cover at dawn, so a few migrants were hopefully going to jump into a net. This certainly was the case as Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff made up a majority of a 30 bird catch. The Willow Warblers were my first of the year which shows how much proper birding I’ve been doing recently!

A nice surprise was this Treecreeper which was actually a re-trap from last autumn.

As the morning wore on, the nets were getting quieter so between rounds I saw these.
A 1st winter (or should that now be summer?) female Scaup with a slightly Lesser Scaup look about its head but that bill doesn’t look good for that. Those bloody swans at Abbotsbury always have to get in the way of a good picture!

These Sandwich Terns were making a racket in the background. Notice the one of the right is ringed.

This was quite a sad sight. This Red-throated Diver has managed to get fishing line stuck on it. The bird was constantly preening, trying to get the line off it.

Annoyingly the winds getting up over the next few days but April should be a good month at Abbotsbury. The two photo’s below show the two ringing rides at the Swannery which will undoubtedly be where most of the birds over the next few weeks will be caught.

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