I've been checking this mornings weather forecast for the past few days with fingers crossed for okay ringing weather. It kept saying it was going to rain, and then that it wasn't and vice versa, and wind was forecast to be between 9-11mph. We went for it since Jan and Duncan had reassured me that the wind speed should be okay (15mph is the limit).
We had the nets up by 8am - we put Ian's Gundry net in the same place as last time, but the other two nets we set on the other side of the reserve (turning left as you enter the gate). Our first catch was a flock of 6 Long-Tailed Tits (new), a Blackbird (new) and a Robin (retrap). At 8:30am we caught another 3 Long-Tailed Tits (2 new, 1 retrap).
The catches after that were slow. We had our eyes peeled for Firecrests because they had been seen in the area the week before. We did see some very small Goldcrest/Firecrest sized birds but we didn't get a good enough view through binoculars to determine whether they had an eye stripe or not. We caught a Goldcrest at 9:30am (new).
At 9:55 there were 3 Long-Tailed Tits and a Dunnock in my 6 metre net. 2 of the Lotti's were ringed this morning. Our last catch while we were packing up was a Wren, which we aged as a 4. IPMR shouted at me when I submitted it saying I'd submitted it as an age code 3 on the 3rd... Looking back in my notebook we did cross out 4 to change it to a 3. Maybe this is a sign to trust my gut and not overthink things!
Seems we packed up at the perfect time as well because as we were leaving the rain started coming down 😄☂🌂⛆
A very obviously juvenile male Blackbird 😄
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