A Good Day

Monday, September 24th 2012

It was a 0700 start for the bird ringers.  The dew, on closer inspection was frost!  Spider's webs covered the Heather and Juniper trees on the heath.

Mist formed whilst photographs were taken and out of the gloom, crossing the road was a female Roe Deer who then jumped over the Beech hedge and bounded through the Heather, an amazing sighting!!  Unfortunately the only photograph taken did not show her well.

Net rounds returned birds including Bullfinch, Chiffchaff, Reed Bunting, Goldcrest and Lesser Redpoll.  The data collected helps us to find out more about the lives of the birds and today we had a Robin which was 4 years old and a Willow Tit which was over 6 years old.

It was 20 years ago exactly that ringing began on the reserve and to date 50 thousand new birds of 79 different species have been ringed.  Including retrapped birds and recoveries of birds ringed elsewhere 90 thousand birds have been processed which has produced a very substantial database allowing all kinds of interrogation.

A surprise capture today was the first Brambling of the year.  This was a beautiful juvenile female bird.

This is the earliest date for the return of these winter migrants.  They usually appear much later in the year.

The bird ringers worked hard during the day and over 150 birds were processed.  Volunteers supplied bacon butties, cakes and many cups of tea.  Thank you for all your hard work.

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