Mist netting at its finest hour!

Some much needed kip was needed last night as yesterday morning was to be a classic example of mist netting at a site with a variety of habitats. Woodland, wet and dry scrub, reedbed and marsh are all covered in this new ringing site near Caernarfon. A few visits have been made previously already this autumn by Steve, in which I have been unable to make. This morning, my hopes were set high for several months of autumn and winter ringing! Picked up from Bangor at 6:30am from the usual place and at the site for 7am. A total of 6 nets were set efficiently in a variety of places to improve the variety of the catch this morning.

This site really has great training potential for progression towards C permit stage, with just Steve and myself this morning, it was a great morning.

Between 60 + 70 birds were caught this morning of a wide variety of species.

About half a dozen Song thrush and a few Blackbirds, some still in post-juvenile moult. Bullfinch, Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Nuthatch and 6 or so Juvenile Goldcrest were a nice surprise thanks to the tape-lure. A long-awaited Jay found itself into a net and was certainly a species that I have been wanting to ring and process for a few years now.. Also tape-lured included an adult male Lesser redpoll and a juvenile Grey Wagtail.

A single 40ft net was then erected in the garden to boost this mornings catch, with large industrial feeders, it soon filled up with 20+ tits, of Blue, Great and Coal..

Lesser Redpoll

Aged as a {4} adult, male with lovely rounded tail feathers and a bright pink chest. If this was to be a juvenile bird, the tips of the tail feathers would come to a point.

Grey wagtail

Aged as a {3} Juvenile. Classic Juvenile plumage. Juveniles this time of year can't be sexed.

Jay Aged as a {4} adult. This is determined by a few factors. Classic square-shaped tail feathers were evident, the bird was still in moult and the outermost greater covert will have 10 black bars as well as being distributed with regularity - these all contribute to adult plumage.

In the afternoon once we had finished ringing, myself and Zac went for an evening's seawatch off the Little Orme/Llandudno which produced zilch! An early night and a sufficient lie in was awaiting. Cheers for now..

Almost forgot to mention that my 249th species of 2010 flew over our ringing site yesterday in the form of 10 Crossbills! Mega!!