We got to the reserve a bit later this morning at about 7:40 and it was starting to get quite light when we arrived. We put the nets up in the same place as last time and a Dunnock flew into my 9 metre net as we were putting it up. We didn't catch anything after that for an hour and a half and some tree workers turned up from about 9am and were using chainsaws in the reedbed area behind the reserve, so we didn't feel very hopeful to catch much more.
At 9:45, a Goldcrest. We decided to use Xeno Canto, leaving Simon's phone next to a net playing Blue Tit calls. It called in two Blue Tits and we had another Goldcrest and a Wren in that round, too.
By 10:30 we were thinking of bringing the nets in. We checked the nets one last time. There was a Robin who's tongue was caught in the net, but I managed to get it out without the Quick Unpick and without injury. Walking back to the gate, Simon noticed what he thought was a Pigeon in the net and ran over to it... but it was a Jay!
It was a particularly easy Jay, really - it only tried to crush my finger with its beak 3 times and it happily held onto a pen (see pic below) and onto my jumper rather than my fingers! The first Primary Covert had 6 black bars (plus one really small one at the top) which means that this Jay is a juvenile.
😁🐦🐤
And here are the totals for today:
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