Two for one

With light winds forecast for the morning of Thursday 26 Sep we decided to have another go at Meadow Pipits at my place as there had been good numbers still around on the Wednesday.

Colin arrived at 7am and the nets were setup. There was however a distinct lack of birds about, had the clear skies and favourable wind direction allowed a lot of the migrants to move on?

Eventually the Meadow Pipits started to appear but we only managed to catch and ring seven of them. Numbers were definitely well down on what was about yesterday.

Meanwhile over at Andy's place on South Ronaldsay Andy and Stan were having another interesting morning after Wednesday's session. A total of 18 birds trapped and ringed including Yellow-browed Warbler, Goldcrest, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird and Wren. However the highlight of the morning was a Blyth's Reed Warbler.

In the evening I joined Colin and Stan at the reedbed. There were still a couple of hundred Swallow feeding over the reedbed. A brief moment of frenzied activity within the flock occurred as a Sparrowhawk flew straight through the flock before disappearing into some nearby trees.

Soon after the flock dropped into the reedbed but further away from where our nets were. As a result we only caught three Swallows.

Having remarked earlier in the evening that all the Sedge Warblers must have now moved on, one appeared in the net just as we were about to wrap up. Surely that must be the last one for this season.

Totals caught this season so far:

  Blackbird                2
  Linnet                   1
  Pied Wagtail            13
  Reed Bunting            18
  Sand Martin              8
  Sedge Warbler          104
  Starling                22
  Swallow                771
  Thrush Nightingale       1
  Willow Warbler           1
  Wren                     4
  Total                  945