My New Garden Site

What a great first day at my new garden site. Caught 46 birds! Almost all were tits but I did catch this wonderful 3M Green woodpecker. I'm hoping for some Redwing, but then aren't we all!

Made It!

My permit is through and a set of rings arrived on Thursday. So straight up with a net Thursday afternoon. Not much happened until a little billy biter hit the net. My first bird. And unbelievably it was a Control! Fantastic. 

 

Gibraltar Ringing Oct 2011

What an amazing 18 days at the Gibraltar Bird Obs. Thanks to Ray Marsh for acting as trainer and allowing me ring there as a trainee. Ringed over 50 Black Redstart as well as Firecrest, Dartford Warbler, Serin, Nightjar, Red-necked Nightjar, Kestral, Crag Martin, Sardinian Warbler and Scops Owl. Extracting the Short-toed Treecreeper, Hawfinch and Wryneck were real highlights. 

SCAN w/end

Good weekend as usual with SCAN. First session of the season so good to meet up with old friends. Quite a few new faces.
Mist nest session on Friday night with a very late tide so got to bed at 3am! Several Curlew caught, 3 Dunlin, a good number of Redshank, 1 Mallard & 1 Teal. Plus 3 Lapwing which was a new bird for me.
Very good catch of 448 Oystercatchers on Saturday. And about 25% re-traps which is excellent news. Hard work though extracting on a rising tide. Had the night off so we all went to the pub.
Sunday was a Curlew catch. A lot of twinkling was needed and it all came good in the end with 15 birds plus a most excellent bonus of 2 Bar-tailed godwit. Sorry no photo's. Will do better next time.

Chepstow Curlew 27-09-11

Up at 4am and followed Dave Coker from Ludlow down to Chepstow for a Curlew catch. Ed Drewitt and Mike Bailey were also there from CVRS. Steve Dodd was the main man. Fired at about 7.30 so not much hanging about at all. Caught 30 birds. All 4s. Had a chance to do some colour ringing. Five colours to put on and every one was different! So keep your eyes peeled when you next see some Curlew. They may well be colour ringed.

Chew W/end 24-25 Sept

Up at 5am and drove the 83 miles to Chew on Saturday and then again on Sunday. Total of 332 miles. 

Tape lures on for BLACA & CHIFF after seeing the successes at Icklesham. Worked well with reasonable numbers of BLACA and good numbers of CHIFF. Still some SEDWA and REDWA knocking about. The feeders were worked for the first time this autumn. Caught the usual BLUTI and GRETI plus a few COATI. Highlights were a NUTHA and a KINGF. I wanted photos but both were released. We get very few Nuthatch at Chew.

Still no sign of a C permit. Given up all hope now this side of 2011. Maybe I will get one in the New Years Honours. 

Felix Flusher

Cheesed off with other people's cats prowling around my garden and shitting by the back door. So I have just bought this beauty as I am not allowed a catapult. Pity it does not have a flame thrower. Bring it on!!!

Feeders At Home

Just set up my feeders ready for the autumn. I am hoping to get some more ringed Starling and Redpoll again as well as good numbers of Golfinch. I want to know where these  controls are from. Last winter I could only watch them. This winter I hope to catch them. House sparrows started to have a look a few months ago so lots of potential.