Leighton Moss Ringing!

Having added a few posts to my blog last night, I thought I would add one more mouth-watering experience of my ringing before I have to start revising for a test on Friday.

Anyway, in the early summer of 2009, I contacted John Wilson from RSPB Leighton Moss who carries out the ringing of the Bearded Tits during the summer. Seeing as though my parents knew John quite well, there was no trouble in asking him if I could go ringing Bearded tits - specifically for them. I ended up going ringing with John twice before the 'miracle' happened. The third time was the best of them all. Arriving at Leighton Moss early one Saturday morning at 5:30am, I met up with John at the end of the causeway nearest the lower hide.

I had no idea of what to expect, so when John pulled up in his 4x4 with Andrew and said: ''Can you bring the boat round to the bridge Chris''.. So off I went, rowing the boat over to John, I just had to step in a deep section of mud didn't I and straight over the thigh waders it went - great start!! The gear was loaded and off we went deep into the channel on our right. After a good 10 minutes rowing, we arrived at the site and nets were erected in several net rides - 8 in total. As if it were a miracle, as I was putting up a mist-net on my own, a juvenile Bearded tit flew straight into the net, literally right next to my shoulder and stayed there..at last!!

During that morning we caught 100+ birds in which I was able to ring most of them thanks to John.. They consisted of 4 species of tits, 6 species of warbler and a few other odd species.. I ended up ringing and colour-ringing 5 Bearded tits that morning. Many thanks to John Wilson and Andrew Cadman for making it a fantastic ringing session and for letting me come along.