139 birds

That's the total number of birds me and five other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group caught at The Avenue during two sessions on Tuesday.

The first session began at 6am. During this session we caught the first 37 birds of the day. The vast majority of the birds were juveniles, which is very good news, demonstrating a good breeding season. I got to ring 4 Blackcaps (all juveniles), 1 juvenile Whitethroat, 1 juvenile Blue and Great Tit and 1 juvenile Chiffchaff.

Juvenile Whitethroat

Juvenile Whitethroat

Other birds caught this morning were: Willow Tit, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Goldfinch and Bullfinch.

The second session of the day was a Swallow roost in the evening. We returned at 6.30pm and set up two nets along the edge of the reedbed.

Mist nets

Approximately 200-300 Swallows came in to roost and we managed a very good catch of 102 birds. Again, the vast majority were young birds, including 2 controls (birds ringed by other ringers and re caught by us). Interestingly, the ring numbers of these two birds were just 6 digits apart, indicating that they were ringed by the same person, most likely from the same nest.

As well as the Swallows, there were about 70 Canada Geese on the reserve tonight, including this family, where a feral Barnacle Goose has paired up with a Canada Goose to produce 2 hybrid birds.

Barnacle and Canada Goose family