Friday, June 3, 2011

Keep ‘Em Guessing

It was a good few weeks since the last full netting session at Out Rawcliffe so Will and I didn’t know quite what to expect. In the event our morning turned out to be both interesting and productive, with our first fledged juvenile (3J) caught. Most surprising were several more adult Whitethroats, newly arrived in the plantation since the previous 16 Whitethroats caught here during fairly intensive ringing during April and early May.

Our total came to 24 birds, 10 new and 14 recaptures which included a large proportion of warblers. New: 7 Whitethroat (6 adults and 1 newly fledged juvenile), 1 Sedge Warbler, 1 Blackbird and 1 Goldfinch, also a newly fledged bird.

Recaptures: 9 Whitethroat, 4 Sedge Warbler and 1 Willow Warbler. It was a little curious that we caught one Willow Warbler today, and whilst there may be females still sat on eggs or small young, we know of at least one completed nest with mobile young, plus we would usually expect to catch a few food gathering adults; we wondered if the cold, strong and persistent winds of the last three weeks have affected Willow Warbler productivity through the lack of suitable insect food? The next session or two should tell us.

The one Whitethroat nest we checked contained young too small to ring, but catching one newly emerged juvenile Whitethroat and watching other adults carrying food to hidden nests suggests that most Whitethroat nests have more days to go. There’s no sign of 3J Sedge Warblers yet.

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

"3J" Goldfinch

Whitethroat nest

So, all in all it was a stimulating session, and once again those mysterious birds simply keep us guessing most of the time.

Other birds seen today: 1 Little Owl, 2 Buzzard, a displaying Curlew, 2 Reed Bunting, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 2 Stock Dove, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Blackcap, 40 House Sparrow, 20 Swallow, 8 House Martin.

7 comments:

Nikola D.A. said...

Was the nest on the ground or in a tree or a bush ?

Phil Slade said...

Whitethroats nest in vegetation but off the ground. phil

La sonrisa de Hiperion said...

Preciosos los pájaros.

Saludos y buen fin de semana.

S K Ditta said...

Each one of these bird pictures is special to me for a reason stated before - the human touch.

grammie g said...

Hey Phil...I wonder what happened to Will..haven't heard you mention him lately!!
I sure glad those birds keep you guessing...they can't give away all there secrets!!
So now I guess you will be doing more banding when the young are around or do you do that right up to there next migrating..oh dear don't even want to think about seasons changing!!
Have a good weekend!!

Mary Howell Cromer said...

Those young Whitethroats are just way too sweet Phil...look at all of those tiny mouths to feed;)))

Chris said...

Excellent post and nice sighting once again. I'm in Tromso now and hope to have an opportunity to see the sedge warbler ;-)

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