Slow down

Summer's coming, so they say. Not that we've seen any of it so far. The last fortnight has been slow to say the least, with just the one day when there was some sort of flurry. It was last Thursday, when we didn't have to go to the supermarket - because we went on Wednesday in stead. Typical.

I have ringed 38 new birds over the 16 days since my last visit, with 12 retraps if I exclude all but the first of the multiple extractions of the Bullfinch clan. [Should start to disperse more widely now].
0, 4, 3, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2, 6, 0, 0/7, 0, 10, 3, 0, 3. That's how it went.

The one uplifting moment - 3JJ Redstart

Jackdaw 1
Blue Tit 3 (3)
Great Tit 2 (2)
Long-tailed Tit 1 - my 1st juv., moulting too.
Chiffchaff 1
Blackcap 8
Wren 3 (1)
Blackbird (2) - a 6F & a 5F
Robin 2
Redstart 1 - the tail was on the previous blog
Dunnock 2
House Sparrow 8 (1)
Goldfinch 1 (1) - a very recent fledgling
Bullfinch 5 (2) - the whole family (spread over)

Now that we are able to access the net-ride sites, the 7 new birds were taken down at the meadows last Tuesday. The grasses are the tallest anyone can remember. Tally was - Blue Tit 1, Chiffchaff 1, Blackcap 2 (1), Wren 1, Song Thrush 1 [a 5M], and Dunnock 1.

The lower crossing place

Now the sun's out from 05:22 until 21:16 and even a blind man can see the nets! What's worse is the bats (brown long-eared) are back out again, wizzing round the nets at dawn and dusk - so they have to be furled until the 'danger' is over.

If 'The Levels' dry out in this warm weather, we may be out catching some warblers the other side of Bridgewater, sooner rather than later! Need to play 'catch-up' - only 500 (or 50%) behind last year's total by now.

PS. I think I've lost some HTML coding as the side bar has slipped to the end of the posts! Ha ha.