Smashing Sunday

Four years ago, during the London Olympics, the British athletes celebrated what was called Super Saturday, when lots of medals were won. At the time, I "borrowed" the title for a blog post about a really good ringing session I took part in with Sorby Breck Ringing Group (see post here). Well, four years down the line, the Rio Olympics are taking place and the British athletes have had a "Super Sunday", with lots of medals won again, and guess what? I've "borrowed" the slightly amended title to describe a "smashing" ringing session I took part in with 2 other ringers on Sunday at Linacre Reservoirs.

In total, we caught 64 birds of 15 species, which, in itself is great, but what made it even more amazing was the number of warblers in the total. The most numerous warbler was Willow Warbler, with 12 juveniles ringed!! To put this total into some kind of context, since we started ringing at Linacre in 2012, we've only ever caught 13 adults, and have never caught any juveniles before, so Sunday's total was outstanding.

Willow Warbler (1 of 12 juveniles)

In addition, we also caught several other warblers, Chiffchaff (4 juveniles and a retrap adult), Blackcap (7 juveniles and 1 adult) and Whitethroat, (2 juveniles). I'm particularly pleased with the Whitethroat record, as I'd only heard and seen the male bird singing once this year, so proof of breeding was very welcome.

Whitethroat (1 of 2 ringed)

Along with the warblers, we also had a good morning with the Linacre "regulars" (new/re-traps): Blackbird 1/0, Robin 3/0, Wren 1/0, Song Thrush 1/0, Coal Tit 2/0, Dunnock 1/0, Blue Tit 12/0, Great Tit 8/0, Goldfinch 1/0, Bullfinch 4/0 and Goldcrest 3/0. Phew!