Warblers!

Yesterday I managed to get out ringing with the group, to Carr Vale, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's reserve near Bolsover. We arrived at 06.00am and in 4 and a half hours we'd managed to ring 65 birds of 13 species.

As you can tell from the title of today's post, warblers were the key birds, with 41 of the 65 birds caught being warblers. Blackcap were particularly numerous with 17 new birds ringed, followed closely by 10 Chiffchaffs, 2 Reed Warblers and 1 Whitethroat. The bird below was one of the Blackcaps. This bird is a 3, meaning it was born this year, and you can just see a few of the brown juvenile feathers remaining.

Moulting Blackcap

 

As well as the warblers we also caught 4 species of tit (Blue, Great, Long-tailed and Willow). Included in the 12 Long-tailed Tits were two birds that were already ringed. We haven't caught any Lottis before, so it will be interesting to see where these birds were ringed.

 

Other birds ringed on site were (new/retraps): Dunnock 2/1, Bullfinch 1/0, Robin 3/0, Chaffinch 1/0 and Wren 1/0.