Ringing again!

Following hot on the heels of Saturday's ringing session at Linacre I was out again this morning with 4 other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group at the private site in Wingerworth, Chesterfield. Three and a half hours passed by very quickly as we caught and ringed/processed a total of 56 birds, including 2 Great-spotted Woodpeckers, such as this juvenile bird (note the red feathers on the head). A pair bred on the site this year, so perhaps this was one of the youngsters?

Great-spotted Woodpecker

As well as the woodpeckers we also ringed a wide range of woodland species such as Blue, Great and Coal Tit, Nuthatch, Blackbird, Robin, Dunnock and Chaffinch.

Nuthatch

Juvenile Blue Tit (growing new blue feathers)

 

A common bird at all our ringing sites is the Dunnock (Prunella modularis). Below are a couple of photos from this morning showing one way to age this species. The top picture, an adult bird, shows a very bright, contrasting eye colour. The second picture shows a bird born this year, (3J) and hopefully you can see that the eye is overall much darker with very little contrast. Honestly!!

Adult Dunnock

 

Juvenile Dunnock

 

There were a few other birds flying around the site this morning including Jay, Common Buzzard and at least 2 Swifts.

 

After we'd finished I popped back up to Wragg's Quarry to look for some dragonflies. I'll blog about that tomorrow, but suffice to say I got a "lifer" and some nice new photos!