The final CES day of the year

Sunday, August 23rd 2009

Today was the final CES (Constant Effort Site) bird ringing day for 2009; around 250 birds were processed in the Field Centre 144 of them new. Here is a Spotted Flycatcher that was caught during the last week.

This ringing session brought to a close the 17th CES year at the site totalling 204 ringing days of 10+ hrs without missing any visits at all during that time. It is a significant achievement and thanks are due to all the ringers who tolerate the unsocial hours and turn in at dawn each CES day which in high summer means reveille as early as 2.30am.

A quick glance at the raw results for 2009 shows today has been the best final day over all, with the single exception of 2004, for new birds caught during the twelfth annual CES visit. 144 new birds were caught compared with 179 in 2004. The year has produced the best results for new birds with the single exception of 2007; 1246 birds against 1298 for all catches in that year. This is very good news after the disappointing breeding season in 2008 although there are still some species that have failed to recover for example the Turtle Dove; 2009 was the first year ever this species failed to put in an appearance on the reserve.

Here is the bird ringing team from today celebrating the end of the last CES day (another 12 hour shift that started at 5am)! Well done everyone!

---

(0) Comments:

There are no comments for this blog post yet. Why not start the discussion? - use the form below:

---

Leave a Comment:

There are some errors in your form.

* Name: Please complete this field, it's required. * Email: Your email address will not be displayed but it's required. URL: * Leave a Comment:

Your email address will not be displayed but it's required.

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

---

Back to Top