A Damp Start

Yesterday we met the normal time 5.30 at the track gate, it was raining and breezy. There was just the 4 of us ,Adam, Dawn ,Simon and myself. Mick had got the weekend off to attend a friends wedding, (not a bad excuse I suppose). Anyway we trundled on down the track to the site. Meanwhile the weather was slowly getting worse. We ended up waiting about 3/4 hour before the rain stopped and we started erecting the nets. With the dawn beginning to break we thought that we had missed most of the thrushes. However we persevered with the Latvian love song. So the first round provided us with about 30 birds of which 5 were Redwings, and an assortment of other species including Yellowhammers, Chiffchaff's and Reed Buntings. I continued my light hearted barricking of Dawn for 'ringing all the good birds' bearing in mind she had ringed the Cetti's and Green Woodpecker last Saturday. After possessing all but one of the birds. Dawn handed me the last bird saying this ones for you. I dipped my hand into the bag felt around got hold of the bird, thought 'small' what could it be? It had to be something Dawn had ringed otherwise she won't have given me the bird. Ha Ha.
Surely not. Yep the second Cetti's Warbler of the year and equaling the the groups annual record. This is only the 10th Cetti's ringed at Stanford in nearly 40 years. Fantastic!! Even though I did have to eat a bit of humble pie to Dawn!

The threat of rain cleared and it became very sunny with the wind increasing and change direction to start to cut across the water and straight into the nets.  The rest of the day we rallied round and got to a respectful total of 111 birds of which 76 were new. 10 Greenfinch, 4 Goldfinch, 3 Chiffchaff, 4 Yellowhammer,10 Redwing, 2 Blackbird, 19 Tree Sparrows, 10 Reed Bunting and an assortment of tits including retrap Coal and Willow Tits. 

Adam tried out a new trap in the field for |Meadow Pipits but was unsuccessful.
Finally Simon and myself met a birder who reported to us that he had seen a Slavonian Grebe on Friday in the bay area. So eyes our eyes peeled on the water for the rest of the morning, but unfortunately with no sightings.