My plan this morning was to connect two nets together, but I overestimated the length of the Gundry net so put the two nets up separately instead but in the same area :P I might as well have put the Ecotone net somewhere else though because it didn't catch anything all morning... Live and learn! I put a third net on the other side of the reserve.
Despite the Ecotone net not catching anything I had a busy start to the morning. On the first round I had four birds - 2 Long-Tailed Tit's, a Blue Tit and a Treecreeper (nice!). I also caught that Bullfinch that we've caught previously with the crusty legs and the cloacal protrusion - the cloacal protrusion looked a bit nasty and maybe infected so maybe it's just unwell and not breeding...
On my second round I caught a flock of 7 lotti's (including one that I'd caught in the first round), a Dunnock and another Treecreeper! (I'll get back to the Treecreepers in a minute as they were different ages and I've got pics to see the differences). The third round I had another Dunnock that managed to roll itself out of the net and got away, and a Blackbird. That round was at 8:45 and I didn't catch anything more after that.
Totals for the morning: (note the number of retraps compared to new birds! All of the data!)
Back to the Treecreepers!
The cream coloured tips on the primary coverts on the Treecreeper in the picture on the left stretch a long way up the shaft of the feathers, whereas the cream tips of the primary coverts on the right Treecreeper are small and do not stretch up the shaft at all. This suggests that the bird on the left was born last year, and the bird on the right is an adult.
I should have taken the photo's with the same background, but it can still be seen quite clearly, and this may be down to poor condition rather than age, but I noticed that the primary feathers of the Treecreeper on the left are a lot more transparent than the primaries of the one on the right.
I was very lucky to see these contrasting plumages today!
And finally here's a picture I sent to Simon captioned "I could have done with your help today!" But actually I coped fine :D I must be getting better at this!
Peace and love xo
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