Stanstock III: A Great Gathering of the Group at the Reservoir

 

Our annual celebration of migration is nominally scheduled for the last whole week of August, leading up to the Bank Holiday. The Gods of Ringing smiled upon us this time, and we had decent weather from Saturday 20th through to Tuesday 30th, so we ringed pretty solidly for 11 days. This was backed up by a good turnout of SRG members, so in addition to Railtrack, for part of the time we had two ringing stations, covering the Railtrack and Point; about 27 nets. As before, a contingent camped out supplemented by day visitors. It is no exaggeration to describe it as a walloping great success!!

Jade, Heather and Kate look industrious

Stuart and Dawn look chilled

Kate, Adam and Peter look... not sure of the correct adjective

The full species count for new birds was: 

Blackcap 1394, Whitethroat 409, Sedge Warbler 349, Willow Warbler 285, Reed Warbler 178, Robin 93, Lesser Whitethroat 72, Garden Warbler 70, Chiffchaff 49, Grasshopper Warbler 40, Blue Tit 27, Redstart 14, Wren 12, Goldcrest 10, Swallow 9, Long-tailed Tit 8, Reed Bunting 7, Blackbird 5, Song Thrush 5, Cetti's Warbler 5, Stock Dove 4, Whinchat 4, Linnet 4, Spotted Flycatcher 3, Great Tit 3, Sand Martin 2, Dunnock 2, Bullfinch 2, and single Tawny Owl, Pied Flycatcher, Wryneck , Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Tree Sparrow, Chaffinch, and Goldfinch!

A young Tawny- great way to start the week

Very smart juvenile Whinchat

Juvenile male Pied Flycatcher

What is getting to be an annual event; Wryneck- a great way to finish the week.

So that is a total of 3,067 new birds, plus 422 retraps and 14 controls over the 10 days, beating last year's new bird total of a mere 1795 by a whopping 1272! Origin of the controls will be confirmed in the annual report due out at the end of January; look out for it on stanfordrg.org.uk

Time for a well earned rest... only joking, time to go out ringing once again!