One-eyed Blue Tit

Whilst out ringing we sometimes come across birds that are ill or have been injured in some way. Today's ringing session took place at a private site in Chesterfield, and during the 4 hour session, we caught one such bird; a one-eyed Blue Tit.

Here's a couple of pictures of the bird, one showing the good eye, and the other showing the side with the eye missing.

Blue Tit

As you can see, the missing eye seems to have been missing for quite a while. We aged this bird as a 6; i.e. a bird born at least 2 years ago, and it appeared in good health, so it doesn't seem to be struggling too much with just 1 eye. Hopefully we'll retrap it again in the future.

As well as this particular Blue Tit, we also caught and ringed another 64 birds of 10 species this morning (Chiffchaff ,the first of the year; Robin, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tit).

During net rounds we also saw and heard the local Tawny Owls, a couple of Jays, and the highlight for everyone a herd of approx. 90 Whooper Swans that flew north-bound over the garden!

Year List update:
87 - Whooper Swan