More Mipits and a (near) record Goose Count

After last week's success ringing my first Meadow Pipit of 2014  I was very pleased to hear that we were heading back up to a moorland site at Ringinglow, Sheffield, for our annual Meadow Pipit ringing session (see here for details of last year's visit).

As in previous years, we arrived on site nice and early (5.30am), and got the nets up as quickly as possible. The MP3 players were set to Meadow Pipit, and after a bit of low cloud had cleared, we started to catch birds. Four hours later we'd managed a very respectable 107 new birds, all Meadow Pipits. The vast majority were juvenile birds, with just 4 adult birds ringed.

Other birds seen during today's session included Raven, Red Grouse (Year Tick), Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, and a Sparrowhawk, that kept buzzing the nets, thankfully, without success!

Thanks to Sean and Kevin for another brilliant session!

In the afternoon, I went for a walk around Linacre with Jayne. There wasn't too much going on, except a couple of "wheeting" Chiffchaff and an amazing 58 Canada Geese on the top reservoir. The group appeared to be one made up of adults and juvenile birds, and is the second highest count I've had there after 80 in October 2011 (see here). We'll see if they hang around, or move on. Here's a poor camera phone photo of some of today's geese.

Canada Geese

Year List update:
173 - Red Grouse