Summer Migrants still here

Yesterday morning I was down at Linacre with 4 other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group for a ringing session. We'd moved the feeding station to another area a couple of weeks ago, and this was the first session with it in its new home. We were there for nearly 4 hours (6:30am to 10.15am), and caught 25 birds of 8 species, including, as the title of today's post suggests, a couple of summer migrant birds.

The 2 summer visitors caught today were, Chiffchaff and Blackcap. In total, 5 new Chiffchaffs were caught and 1 new Blackcap, a juvenile female birds weighing just over 18g. This bird was also beginning to build up fat reserves ready for its migration to sunnier climes. I say they are summer migrants, but Chiffchaff has now been recorded in every month bar February at Linacre, so it is possible that some of these birds may stay for the whole year, or the winter birds that have been recorded here, may come here from elsewhere. Hopefully, we'll get some recoveries of these birds ringed today to help us build up a picture of what they do in the winter months.

We also caught 12 Goldcrests today (11 new birds and a retrap). Again, we tend to think of birds caught here as being "home grown" birds, but last year, we caught a Goldcrest that had been ringed on the east coast at Spurn Point, so it is just as possible that the birds ringed today could have come from there, or even further afield.

The other species caught today were (new/retrap): Blue Tit 2/1, Coal Tit 0/1, Robin 0/1 ( a juvenile bird that we originally ringed at Linacre earlier in the year), Dunnock 1/0 and Wren 1/0.

In between net rounds we recorded the following birds around the site: Lesser Black-backed Gull (1 over), Raven (1 over), Mistle Thrush ( 1 over), Sparrowhawk (1 over), Tawny Owl (1 heard calling on arrival) and House Martin (2 over). Finally, a single Silver Y moth was found feeding on a buddleia bush.