Saturday 4 February 2012

Colourful Catching!

Time hasn't half flown by and I still can't believe that we are already in February; the breeding season will soon be here and still there is so much to do. I will kick start February's ringing with several posts of my most recent ringing.

Last weekend, on Sunday 29th January I headed over to Atherton to meet up with Kane, Ciaran, Gillian and Zac to help out with Zac's colour ringing project on Blue tits as part of his dissertation. Whilst keeping an eye out for Great Tits showing signs of Avian Pox, we managed to capture 97 birds throughout the ringing session. Mainly tits with Great, Coal and Blue contributing to the totals for the day but also Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Treecreeper and Goldcrest were caught.

A total of 20 Blue Tits were colour ringed during the day; a great effort!

Watching a pair of Tawny Owls breeding in a nest box in Kane's garden on Saturday night was great and with a camera installed now, their daily activities will be on show. This pair of Tawny Owl nest is our first card, as part of our 1,000 Nest Record Card challenge that we hope to complete this year.

An early morning session on the Sunday morning produced Blackbird, Bullfinch, Goldfinch and Robin and an afternoon hand catching at Crompton Lodges produced 3 Canada geese and 4 Coot.

Huge thanks to Kane for an awesome weekend as usual and to the rest of the guys for a very enjoyable weekend. See you all again soon.

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