The morning after the night before

The BTO Conference at Swanwick, from Friday evening to Sunday lunch, was a great success; almost everybody I spoke to enjoyed the variety of speakers that were all showing us how ringing, nest recording and bird-watching can work in conjunction with each other, towards a better understanding of many of our UK species. Not having been "to conference" or attended a ringing course for 3 years (more or less), it was also a time for me to re-acquaint myself with the "goings on" of a large cross-section of my friends and fellow ringers over breakfast, lunch, tea and at the bar. The 4 hour journey home was a constant nightmare in the cold, wind, rain, thunderstorms, low bright sun, spray and darkness on a route I have seldom travelled.

That said, I was eager to trap a few more birds in the garden, the meadows being out of the question under the current weather conditions. It was yesterday afternoon before it was safe to open the nets (a 60' & a 30'). A small catch proved adventitious as did an early morning session today, before the wind increased, bringing the rain and hail with it. The Watchet hill does not give us any protection from a WNW wind; a pity it wasn't more northerly.

The afternoon produced 4 new birds and 3 re-traps - Blue Tit 2 (1), Long-tailed Tit (1), Blackcap 1, Robin (1), Dunnock 1. The Blackcap was a 1CY female with a fat score of 30 (ESF).
The morning saw just 3 new birds and 1 re-trap - Blue Tit 1, Blackcap 1, Robin 1 (1); the Blackcap was a 1CY male with a fat of 10.




How many more Blackcaps will I catch before the year's end? Looking at the first winter period of 2011 and this, I have trapped 15 different individuals so far. In January I caught 5, 4 males and a female that stayed until mid March, and in February 2 males. Excluding the wintering female, there were no Blackcaps in the garden between 11th February and 22nd March, after which I trapped 4 heavy birds before the end of March, presumably all returning birds on passage from further south (i.e. France?). This autumn I stopped catching summer Blackcaps on 24th September and didn't trap any more until the 28th October, when I had a male and a female in consecutive weeks. In November, I have had 3 males and 1 female, and, in this first week of December, one of each sex, as per the images above.

The new Dunnock was a bird of the year on eye colour (and feather shape). It had already acquired the lesions on its left foot typical of "Bumblefoot" (see below) but was otherwise healthy - and weighed in at 23.7 grams.




As friend Phil suggested, I had better get on and finish the kitchen decorating if I am to get a "pass out" to go ringing with the new trainee at the week-end! Toodle pip!