Tuesday 22nd April

Dave and I met at the reservoir at 05:30 this morning. It had rained during the journey from Corby but as Dave and his son Angus arrived 5 minutes behind me the rained had stopped. We drove down the railtrack, shared out the nets and went our seperate ways. By the time we had both made it back to the our base on the railtrack the rain had started again so there was no time for tea just yet. Off we went to quickly extract any birds from the nets. A few Willow Warblers and Blackcaps were the only captures and judging by the look of the sky we were wondering if we would be dodging the rain all morning and perhaps yesterday would have been the better choice of the two days. As it turned out the rain quickly stopped and fortunately stayed away for the remainder of the morning. Cloudy skies and little or no breeze made excellent conditions but most birds are still singing on territory and not a lot was moving around apart from the usual Tits at the feeders and the occasional vist from a very vocal Great Spotted Woodpecker. However, there was a Grasshopper Warbler singing again in the same area as it was on Saturday and another Lesser Whitethroat was ringed, the third this year already! A brief walk to the point revealed two Reed Warblers singing in the phragmites patch, again the first seen or heard this year. Overall it was a fairly pleasant morning with 40+ birds processed. Now it's time for me to head off to work. Well, ringing doesn't pay for itself does it?