The CES season begins

Mick and I sallied forth on Friday 3rd May to undertake the first CES of the year. We met at 0500 and proceeded to put up 14 nets on a dull and cool morning. These are often quiet, as a lot of the birds are either sitting up in trees singing, to defend their territories, or sitting on eggs.

The session produced 26 new birds and 42 retraps, a great start. Amongst the new birds, we ringed two new Grasshopper warblers. These were some distance apart and so we are confident these represent two distinct territories, in addition to a third near The Point. These remain quite a rarity which we don't get every year and so we were very pleased. Retraps are not quite so glamorous, but the warblers (with the exception of one Cetti's) are all migratory. This means that they have travelled to and from Africa or the Mediterranean since we last saw them and are starting to breed at good old Stanford. By the end of the morning we had ringed all 10 of our regular warbler species, a fantastic start to the season!

Peter N

Grasshopper Warbler - P Norrie