July 13th - 20th

We managed to get 3 ringing sessions in this week. Firstly on the 15th Adam and I ringed from just past the Water Tower up to the Orchard area, managing to catch 74 birds of which 51 were new. The highlight of the day being 2 Kingfishers, this brings the years catch to 9, the best since 12 were caught in 1981. The next ringing effort was again by Adam and myself doing CES 8 on Thursday 17th. What a day with 150 birds handled, 92 being new. The catch was dominated by young birds proving how good a breeding season it's being for them. Warblers, as ever at our site were at the forefront of things all morning. A truly great morning with great birds! Of interest, we had 3 good retraps, one being the nearly bird. First we caught a Reed Bunting that was originally ringed way back in August 2009 as an adult male, secondly we caught a Chaffinch, also ringed as an adult male but this time it was ringed in September 2009 so both birds are now getting quite old. Finally we caught the nearly bird, it was definitely a record for us but not quite a national record. The bird was a long distant migrant which probably goes to Ghana each winter a truly epic journey. It was first caught on the 2nd July 2005 as a breeding adult female it was a Garden Warbler, hopefully it will return next year to claim its record. The bird that currently holds the record is a few months older than ours but was ringed as a juvenile so our bird is technically older than the record holder. So, with Saturday being a wash out we went out ringing yesterday, I was joined by Jess this time as the rest of the group could not make it. We had another good day with 116 captures 86 being new. Sundays catch was dominated by Whitethroats and Blackcap that are now coming to sound lures. We also caught a new species for the year, a House Sparrow.... not very exciting you would think but we have ringed less than 10 in the 39 years we have been at Stanford. Epic !!! Mick