Tuesday 25 June 2013

A Tale of Two CES's

A fairly windless, although rather too sunny, morning allowed both Constant Effort ringing sites to operate their fifth visit of the season. At Middleton, 30 new and 16 retraps were caught, including the first numbers of migrant warbler young. In contrast, the Heysham site yielded 3 new birds and 5 retraps - not a good return on four hours' set time for 6 mist nets!

Heysham Nature Reserve

Whitethroat- family party of young around the hut area.
Linnet - pair at top of slope above hut.
Swallow - at least two pairs feeding around hut area.  Presumably local breeders
House Martin - also 1-2 pairs feeding as above.

Middleton
Swift - 32 south
Grasshopper Warbler - at least 3 singing plus two (ad & juv) caught
Reed Warbler - 2 possibly three extra singing males in the central marsh since the last visit - not unusual for late migrants to be dribbling in with this species - one was trapped and was unringed
Lesser Black-backed Gull - at least 63 pairs on industrial estate roofs
Herring Gull - Just 5 or so pairs as above