The Big 50

Yesterday saw me mark the Big 50 milestone. No, nothing to do with birds it was my 50th birthday.

The day started off dull, damp and misty, although the wind had dropped from the previous day. The drop in wind allowed me the opportunity to put my new weather station up on the pole where my previous one was. This new station allows me to monitor a few additional weather parameters as well as analysing the data better.

The only birding present this year was a book entitled 'Scotland - Birds of Prey' which has some stunning photographs in it.

In the afternoon 3 of us, plus my good lady were back on Deerness for another session at the same site we were at last week. Three mist nets were set and in the region of 20 birds were caught. 1 Blackcap, 1 Dunnock, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Redwing, 2 Robins, 1 Song Thrush and the rest Blackbirds.

For me, I got to ring 6 Blackbirds, the Blackcap (a female this time), the Dunnock, the Goldcrest, the Redwing, the Song Thrush and a new species a Robin. Another first for me was extracting the Goldcrest from the net.

This session also saw me ring my 1000th bird.

So all in all not a bad day.

Typically today is blue sky and sunshine, at least it's the weekend :)