Ringing and Walking

Today's title refers to the two things I have been doing today. The day started with my first ringing session since August with 3 other members of Sorby Breck Ringing Group, and continued with a lovely walk around Yorkshire Sculpture Park with Jayne.

The ringing session took place at the private site in Wingerworth. The temperature when we arrived at 6.30am was just 6 degrees, and it took a while for the birds to wake up, but, by 10am, when we packed up, we'd caught 54 birds of 11 species. Numbers were as follows (new/retrap): Dunnock 3/0, Robin 6/0, Goldcrest 4/0, Coal Tit 3/2, Blue Tit 14/1, Great Tit 9/0, Nuthatch 2/1, Chaffinch 6/0, Greenfinch 1/0, Goldfinch 1/0 and Bullfinch 1/0.

The sun had come out by the end of the session, and rose to a very nice 21 degrees by the afternoon. Jayne and I decided to drive up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to pick up a picture and to have a walk around the lake. Birdwise, it was quite quiet, with just  the usual Jackdaws, Mallards, Coots, Moorhens, Mute Swans,Canada and Greylag Geese seen around the water. We also heard a Kingfisher, and spotted a couple of Grey Wagtails flying around by the overflow from the bottom lake. Given the warm, sunny weather, we expected to see a few butterflies, and we were in luck with 1 Comma, 1 Large White, 1 male Brimstone and about 10 Speckled Woods seen. We also managed to see three species of dragonfly; 1 Common Darter, 2 Migrant Hawkers and a female Southern Hawker, that was ovipositing into  a piece of wood in the round pond by the centre.

Southern Hawker