Under Rydon Hill

Welcome to this blog about my time away from the tedium of domestic management. Once called "Tits and Things", now sub-titled "Life in Quantoxia", there's plenty of bird ringing (90%), some odd bits of general birding, some local steam trains, some personal bits and occasional 'away days' in other parts of Britain. Rydon Hill overlooks the lower valley of the Doniford Stream, where most of these activities take place.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

A few more

Another wet and windy week gone past but a few more birds caught and ringed nevertheless. 26 birds again with 16 new and the rest re-captured.
Another young Robin heralded the second broods now becoming more independent and a retrapped male had a primary moult score of 14 and very little tail left.


Juvenile Robin, second brood, June 2011

A pleasant surprise was two juvenile Chaffinches, one of each sex (on wing length), the first of the year.


Juvenile Great Tit, main brood, June 2011

A better week for juveniles at >70% of the catch; this week's takings -
Blue Tit 5 (2)
Great Tit 2
Long-tailed Tit (5)
Blackcap 1
Blackbird 4 (2)
Robin 2 (1)
Chaffinch 2
Greenfinch (1)

Whilst walking the dog, I bumped into one of the millionaire land-owners hereabouts, and he kindly suggested that I might ring in one of his fields during the summer months. This would suit me fine as it's only a 5 minute walk away. During the winter this long field beside the Donniford Stream - Kingfishers!! - is grazed by horses as their pastures elsewhere become clemmed. The fields round here either contain sheep or horses so there are very few 'proper meadows' like this one.


Meadow at Egrove, June

There are several suitable places, all exposed to the wind, but sufficient for me to be able to choose a sheltered spot or two. Currently it is heaving with Whitethroats, one of my favourite target species.


The Donniford Stream, June.

Thirdly, I now have to get to grips with "Windows 7 Pro", and ultimately install IPMR and then transfer all my files over to the new computer. My X20 has given me good service over the last seven years and I have grown fond of "Windows XP". The number of operating systems I have had to learn since 1966 is getting beyond a joke and I now stay as far away as I can from the intricacies of modern computing.

Seeing a third summer Herring Gull taking on a full adult Herring Gull on our roof reminds me that the Herring Gulls on the factory roof next-door-but-one have raised two chicks; they must have hatched on Wednesday or Thursday when we had showers as this is the first time we've seen them and they look to be about 3-4 days old (seen from our landing window).
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1 comment:

  1. BTCV EdJune 21, 2011 at 7:26 PM

    We'll have to compete as to who has the most productive whitethroat site! Ed

    ReplyDelete

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