06/07 - Fleet Pond

I arrived at 4am on site to set up after a bit of an eventful drive in. A car being chased by the police decided to hit mine while trying to get by. Luckily nobody was hurt at all and the damage was minimal considering.

It seemed that was where the excitement stopped today though as the final tally for the CES visit was 5 new birds and 10 retraps. With only 4 juveniles for the session.

              Misty start over the pond

I did have to watch my step though as there were hundreds of young frogs hopping about all the net rides.

29th June - Puffin Island

No ringing at any of our regular sites this weekend as we travelled up to North Wales to join the ringing group heading over to Puffin Island for a day of seabird ringing as part of their ongoing studies on the island. 

We had superb weather and a good team so by the end of the afternoon we had processed a little under 700 birds (dominated by cormorants, shags and razorbills).

Many thanks again to Steve and Rachel for hosting us.

       Louise with one of the few puffins 

       of the day

On the Sunday we took the chance to have a day in Snowdonia and had a short walk up Y Garn before heading back just in time to hit all the Grand Prix traffic.

     View from halfway up Y Garn. The 

     view from the top was distinctly

     cloudy.

CES 6 starts well...

Tuesday morning saw the sixth CES visit at Fleet Pond. It started well with 18 birds in the first 45 minutes from 300ft of net. Unfortunately that was pretty much it, after the full 5 hours I had only processed 24 birds in total.

Highlights came in the first juvenile willow warblers and our regular control reed warbler (on its 9th capture so far over the past 2 years).

Totals:
new birds (retraps)

Blue tit - 4 (1)
Dunnock - (1)
Greenfinch - 1
Reed warbler - 3 (7)
Robin - 1 (1)
Song thrush - 1
Willow warbler - 3
Wren - (1)

After all the nets were packed away there was just time to ring one brood of 5 robins before heading off to work