John and I were joined by Ken and his trainee James, who was able to add three new species which is always a good day. One of the three Fieldfares caught was released unringed but it happens!
We are really noticing the drop off in Chaffinch numbers, or should I say, the number that we are catching - perhaps the ones present are all ringed!
Mistle Thrush
New Retrap
Blackbird 3
Bullfinch 1 1
Fieldfare 2
Goldfinch 1
Greenfinch 6
Mistle Thrush 1
Robin 3
Song Thrush 1
Starling 1
Wren 1
Total 17 4
Starling
This morning the focus was more so on preparing the new net rides and together we have cut two new 18 metre net rides and a 6m dog leg off once of these. We are eyeing up another 12m ride also but we will see how these new ones work and see if we can increase the catch of the Fieldfare!
We had the three usual nets open and caught a few birds and again another single Fieldfare, caught in the same net. I did have another in the nets but it flipped out on approach. We will probably use 19x19mm 4 shelf nets in these new rides which are better for catching larger birds as the finer mesh 15x15mm 5 shelf nets have cost us at least 3 Fieldfares so far this season (but do catch the smaller passerines better).
Fieldfare
New Retrap
Blue Tit 3 1
Bullfinch 3 3
Fieldfare 1
Greenfinch 1
Linnet 1
Robin 1
Song Thrush 1
Wren 1
Total 11 5
A Merlin made an appearance mid morning and made a kill over the river which appeared to be a Fieldfare. The bird was certainly very heavy as the bird made a sharpish landing on the rocks before slipping into the Marram Grass.
The local Otter family also gave us a bit of a show with three feeding right along the rock armour and it looks as though they had been running about the shoreline before I arrived.
One of three Otters present
Otter tracks
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