Willow Warblers Are Back

Saturday was ringing, a perfect way to start the Easter Holidays, we managed to avoid the rain and get a few hours of ringing. The day started off great; just as we started to spread the nets a Wood Pigeon shot into the net (Dan's favorite).

There were quite a few birds passing through. Birdsong was heard everywhere and a high pitched song caught our ear. It was a Willow Warblers song and later on as you can see in the picture we caught it, our first Willow Warbler of the year.

The majority of the birds we caught today were Blackcaps, two of which were females. We caught a retrap male from a couple of years ago, however most of the others were new.

It was really interesting to see how many were passing through. However, some of them were singing in the same place for quite a while which suggests they could have been on territory already.

I'm really looking forward to the start of our RAS ( Retrapping Adults for Survival ) project on Blackcaps which we will start in a couple of weeks.

We also caught a couple of  Chiffchaffs, however one in particular stood out; a retrap and a rather pale one. We soon realised it was the Siberian Chiffchaff we ringed in January. It must have stayed around so it will be interesting to see if the Siberian Chiffchaff continues to stay around during the breeding season.

We also caught two Linnets (Mark Avery's favourite birds) which is a new ringing bird for me. 

Other birds caught today included Robin, Blackbird, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Long Tailed Tit, Wood Pigeon, Blue Tit and Reed Bunting.

Off to Grandma's in Wales now for a week, can't wait; I will be watching out for the return of the Pied Flycatcher while I am there.