Visiting Ringers

Saturday dawned to a bright and calm morning and with a 04:30 start things looked good and all we needed were the birds to play the game, and play they did with some 184 birds processed. With Adam having a late start due to working a night shift we were glad to see a group of visiting ringers. Jesse is working up here till mid September and is a C ringer with the Rye Bay Ringing group so we hope she will become a regular during here time up here, while Jed Andrews brought over 2 Spanish ringers, Juan and Jose to have their permits upgraded to 'A'. Anyway we ended up with a much bigger team than usual, with people scattering along the side of the Reservoir the nets were soon in place. A quick cup of coffee and we were off extracting the first wave of birds about 65 in all. What a start but with the number of people ringing we soon had the birds cleared and off we went for round two which was a little disappointing but not to worry it was still early morning with plenty of time to catch. After ringing at Rye Bay for the last 4 years Jesse got a ringing tick much to our surprise in the shape of a Tree Sparrow, later on she got to ring some pulli as well, well done Jesse! Meanwhile the two Spaniards were making a great impression with everybody with their knowledge and good humour, I wish they could stay and join the group !!!! Anyway I digress, Adam turned up about 10:00 with bag in hand, in it was a new bird for Juan a Stock Dove not bad at all. Adam had also been to do the brood of Kestrels on the far bank , a large and feisty brood of 3. In the meantime the Spaniards were treated to 3 Lesser Whitethroat, a species that is not encountered back home as they migrate through Italy. A juvenile Coal Tit was a decent bird for us as we only ring very small numbers here, then just at the end of the day we hit a Long Tailed Tit flock catching 20 birds, they seem to have had a good year this year I counted 56 going through the garden the other day. Blackcap is another species on the up with 20 birds caught mainly juvenile, long may it last with CES visit 6 this coming week. Mick