One more British recovery

Post date: Sep 9, 2014 4:08:05 PM

Today, I took advantage of the good weather (which seems to be changing soon) to give Tim the opportunity to get more ringing experience, this time in my old "Line Paludicola", which unfortunately is dry and does not look good for Aquatic Warblers. Five 15m nets were set up before the first light and, as always, kept open for five hours. There was really dense mist on our arrival to the site, where we were greeted by a beautiful Barn Owl (Tyto alba), but did not detect any Nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) and were unable to trap any.

Despite using more nets, fewer birds were captured than yesterday, as expected from the dryness of the site. It was still pretty good, varied, and included a Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) with a British ring. The totals per species were the following (retraps between parenthesis):

Acrocephalus schoenobaenus 2

Acrocephalus scirpaceus 9(3)

Anthus trivialis 3

Cettia cetti 1(3)

Cisticola juncidis 2

Erithacus rubecula (1)

Euplectes afer 4(5)

Locustella naevia 1

Luscinia svecica 2

Parus caeruleus 1

Passer montanus 1

Phylloscopus trochilus 8

Sylvia atricapilla 1

An adult Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia), showing moulted tertials and greater coverts

First-year male Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica cyanecula)

Some more photos are available at Tim's Blog.

Next session will be sometime at the end of the week. More news then!

Júlio M. Neto