July - First Week

Saturday 2nd        

We thought June at Stanford had been hectic but July got off to a flying start with 143 new birds and 68 retraps. 

As would be expected at this time of year at Stanford, warblers dominated the catch (retraps in brackets):

Sedge Warbler   6 (15)               Reed Warbler     1                     Lesser Whitethroat   4 (1)

Whitethroat       27 (12)              Garden Warbler   5 (5)               Blackcap   18 (3)

Chiffchaff          10                      Willow Warbler    9 (2)

Tree Sparrows continue to appear at the feeding station but 28 new with 10 retraps was a surprising total.

A sprinkling of other species included Coal Tit 1, Willow Tit 1, Linnet 8 (1), Reed Bunting 8 (6) and the first Yellowhammer of the year.

Yellowhammer

Leaving Stanford we were invited to a privately-owned nature reserve where we ringed three Barn Owl chicks to round off the day’s ringing rather nicely – thank you!

The youngest Barn Owl chick

The oldest Barn Owl chick

Monday 4th

Intrepid Adam ventured into the reed bed on the Leicestershire side and managed an impressive 64 new birds with 50 retraps before blearily starting his shift work at 2pm.  As expected Reed Warblers dominated his catch with 30 new birds ringed (of which 12 were pulli) and 40 retraps but his star bird was the second year male Yellow Wagtail that he caught in one of his beloved spring traps – not only another new species for the year but the first Yellow Wagtail to be ringed since 2005.

Yellow Wagtail

Wednesday 6th

With heavy rain and wind forecast for Thursday, Webmaster Mike and I decided that Wednesday, with a forecast of cloud and no wind until 1000 hrs, was going to be a much better bet.  WRONG!  
At 0430 hrs we erected nets around “The Point” area and got off to a very slow start but just a few hours later, after the second heavy shower and with the wind increasing, we took our sorry selves and our wet net bags home.   
We had managed a disappointing 26 new birds (and 32 retraps) which included warbler numbers of:

Sedge Warbler   6 (2)                 Reed Warbler 1 (3)                     Whitethroat       7 (5)

Garden Warbler 1 (2)                  Blackcap        1 (1)                     Willow Warbler 2 (5)

By the end of the week we had ringed 233 new birds with 150 retraps of 26 species

Sedge Warbler Recovery

Thanks to the Scouse Ringer, Peter Fearon, for details of Stanford Sedge Warbler V733483 that he controlled in Portugal last year at his ringing site at Lagoa de Santo Andre, Setubal.  Our recoveries and controls page on the SRG web site has been updated to include this bird click here. Peter caught several UK ringed Sedge Warblers as his Blog shows Peter's Blog