Chris, Heather and Cedwyn arrived at 05:30 to be greeted by a little more wind than was expected. Luckily it eased almost immediately and by the time we had the nets up it had dropped to almost nothing. So a perfect mornings ringing in prospect and again there was an early bird in the net before we had really got them sorted.
A good variety of birds caught through the morning although almost 50% were Willow Warblers. Good to see a large number of juveniles, which hopefully means they are having a good year. We were able to compare a number of birds and we did notice that while most had uniformly lemon yellow breast feathers, some were distinctly streaky and could be a challenge to age later in the year if caught again.
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| Juvenile Willow Warbler |
While we are on the subject of juvenile birds it was excellent to catch a Treecreeper which is proof of breeding here at Kenfig which has been awaited for some time.
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| Juvenile Treecreeper |
Maybe I'm being a little anthropomorphic but I get the distinct impression that the Treecreeper does not look too impressed with being caught and photographed.
Totals for the day:
The weather finally relented and we could fit in CES 4, even though it was a day late. Still satisfies the CES rules. The slight improvement if numbers continues, but only just. Forgot to take the camera today so unfortunately no pictures.
Total for the day:
With time running out for CES 4 and the weather for the coming week looking less than promising, a possible window appeared for this morning.
Cedwyn and Chris rolled up at 05:30 only to find the rain predicted for 4-5am still in evidence and the wind of 6mph feeling like at least twice that.
We had little option but to call it off, and with it still raining as I write this, I at least feel vindicated.
Back to watching the Met Office site for the next opportunity.
With the weather being against us over the last week it was the last possible day for CES 3, but it proved to be ideal weather for ringing. The catch was not as large as we would like but the increase on 2013 totals is still providing hope of a better year in prospect.
Anticipating that numbers may be low, we supplemented the usual 6x18m net run in the CES ride with a further 2x18m nets set some distance away in the scrub. This was to ensure we did not interfere with the CES catch and to possibly vary the species count.
Cedwyn and Chris were joined today by Alex for the early part of the session and she was rewarded with a few new species. The highlight being a female Kingfisher:
A little later we caught a male. I guess they must be a bit like London buses. They had been seen regularly patrolling the ringing ride so it was only a matter of time before they would turn up.
By this time unfortunatley Alex had left.
Our decision to put up extra nets was justified as the last round of the day brought another good bird:
Note the use of a protective bird bag (I have such delicate hands).
Totals for the day:
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