7 Oct 12 - A Raptor in my net

It was an early start this morning; the alarm went off at 5am. I got up and peered out of the window and was confronted with thick fog. This didn’t bode well for a morning out ringing. Still it was early and the weather could improve.

A quick breakfast and I was on my way from the cottage I was staying in on the East side of Preston over to Fleetwood to meet up with Seumus at what was going to be a new site for me. I arrived at the designated meeting point around 6:15am to a clear day. The sun was just starting to lighten the sky and a pair of Robins were having a singing contest. A couple of Redshank flew overhead and a Wren joined in with the singing contest.

Seumus arrived soon afterwards and we headed off down a track not far away to the ringing site. As we were getting the net poles off of the roof of Seumus’ car we were treated to a Barn Owl appearing out of the dark and sauntering overhead.

We set up three nets around the site with an MP3 lure for Greenfinch at one of the nets and another for Meadow Pipits at one of the other nets.

During the morning the fog rolled in and out on several occasions making noticeable changes to the air temperature. Having started off with a temperature of +2C by the end of the morning it was t-shirt and sunglasses.

It ended up being quite a busy morning with 2 retraps and 42 new birds for the site, as follows (retraps in brackets):

Blackbird                 2

Blue Tit                   2

Great Tit                 (1)

Greenfinch              27

Meadow Pipit          10

Robin                     (1)

and the highlight of the day, my first

Sparrowhawk           1 male

A big thanks to Seumus for hosting me again, it was a great morning and hopefully the weather will be good again next Saturday for another session before I head for home.