Sunday, 20 June 2010

Ringing Report from Chris Hughes


Well Richard, we were right about the Cetti's as I caught a male in the reedbed - the second ever Cetti's for the site. Also, in the same net but on the next net round a stunning male Cuckoo was caught - a site first I think. Very handsome bird indeed and aged as hatched last year as it had retained 4 juvenile secondaries. Just to put this in context, over the last 4 years only 1 Cuckoo a year has been ringed in Cambs and last year only 34 (including 13 nestlings) were ringed in UK (out of 856,991 birds ringed). So to catch one of these beauts was a real treat and made the early morning start a bit more worthwhile than normal.

Other birds of interest were an extremely young Nightingale with tail feathers just emerging and 4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers in the same net together. Phenomenal racket as they all took up the challenge to see who could shout the loudest, Dad kicking off and joined by 3 juvs.

Excellent total for the morning again boosted by good numbers of juvenile Blue, Great and Long tailed Tits. Not sure where all the Garden Warblers have got to. Don't seem to be many around.

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