NRBO Autumn Visit - Day 3 (15 Oct)

Today was as forecast a day of very light winds and resulted in a long day up at Holland House, with the mist nets opened from 7am until 6.30pm. The day was spent with Alison, Kevin and Gavin and Stan joined us for the first couple of hours.

After breakfast Claire came up to Holland House for the morning to watch the ringing and see some of the birds close up, including the Redpoll which was a new bird for her.

In total over 200 birds of 17 species were caught. These were Blackbird, Blackcap, Brambling, Chiffchaff, Dunnock, Fieldfare, Goldcrest, Great Spotted Woodpecker, House Sparrow, Linnet, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Redpoll, Robin, Song Thrush, Wren and the Bullfinch that has been around the area for the last couple of days.

I managed to ring 40 birds across all of these species except for the Bullfinch (I was at breakfast when it was caught),the Robin, Wren and the woodpecker as these were retraps. I procesed 13 retrapped birds from seven different species.

The Fieldfare and Mistle Thrush were new ringing species for me, the latter being only the eigth record for North Ronaldsay.

Fieldfare

Mistle Thrush

One of the Redwings was wearing a Danish ring so it will be interesting to hear a bit more about that bird in due course.

Just before breakfast word came through that a Blyth's Reed Warbler had just been caught at the Obs so we managed to get a lift back to the Obs instead of having to walk. Gavin was the lucky person to ringing it.

 

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Elsewhere on the island a number of interesting birds were found including an Olive-backed Pipit, an Arctic Redpoll, a Red-breasted Flycatcher and a Canada Goose which is a scarce visitor to North Ronaldsay.