The Army Ornithological Society Visit

The summer planned visit of the AOS had to be cancelled due to bad weather, so it was rearranged for this weekend.  It was drizzling and damp but better than the light rain forecast.  The ringers were kept busy.

For the first time in several weeks several Lesser Redpoll were brought into the ringing room.  Their numbers will increase through the autumn as they come into the reserve to feed.

Another visitor was a Treecreeper.

In total 187 birds were processed of which 117 were new birds.  Great Tits ringed in the nest boxes this year made an appearance.  It was thought that we must have ringed every young Bullfinch on the reserve, but no, another seven were given their rings today.  A male Chaffinch was found to be eight years old and another was seven.  Other birds ringed included Marsh and Willow Tits, Reed Bunting and Goldcrest.

Thank you to everyone who helped today.

Changing species  now.  Technology is brilliant and emails have been passing between people about the Dark Arches that was shown on the blog on Thursday.  David, one of our volunteers, is trapping moths and was unsure of the ID of the same moth so was pleased to see our identification.  He had decided it was a Copper Underwing.  That was when the warning bells started to ring, whoops, wrong ID?  After much too-ing and fro-ing of emails, it has been decided that the moth shown on Thursday is a Copper Underwing, unless someone thinks differently!  Thanks to David and Tim for their help!

Today no question of incorrect ID (hopefully) for this Angle Shades moth which was quietly sitting on the Field Centre wall, behind one of the benches.  Picked up carefully for photographing it started to drink some of the water that was on the leaf.

Once it had had its fill, it rolled its proboscis back up under its head.