...well, not quite - I caught 4. One of which was a retrap and the ring is not mine! Will have to wait and see if it's a control (a bird that has been retrapped 5km or more away from where it was first ringed), but I'm not getting my hopes up (much)!
I put up 4 nets, 2 in the places that I said I'd try last time. Those two nets didn't catch much (one caught one Blackcap and the other caught - okay, a little better - a Blackcap, a Dunnock and a Woodpigeon that I spooked into the net, so that one doesn't count.)
Talking of the Woodpigeon... I now realise why I've been having such a hard time fitting the F rings... it's because on the big pliers the big hole is the first hole, the smaller hole second. On the small pliers the first hole is the smallest and then they get bigger. So I've been fitting F rings in the G ring hole and when we caught a Woodpigeon at the Butterfly Reserve before I taught Simon how to fit an F ring (in the G hole). So please, Simon, forget everything I told you about fitting F rings! 😌 In fact, if anything, F rings are 10 times easier doing it the right way - you did a good job fitting an F ring the wrong way, so I have every faith in you to do it even better the right way!
I also told myself I'd get a photo of the Woodpigeon for the blog. I totally forgot to do that but I did take a photo of the evidence that I'd ringed one:
The Cetti's Warbler that I caught was a retrap, but it wasn't the retrap that I've caught here previously, so that's quite exciting! I had a bit of a shock while taking my nets down. Two men were walking around inside the Butterfly Reserve and usually people don't go in there so I was surprised. They stopped and asked what I'd caught, told them about the Cetti's and then one of them said that he was Steve, the guy who checks the nest boxes at Bowdown, who I'm scheduled to join this year to ring the nestlings! So it was good to meet him. He and his pal were in the Butterfly Reserve doing a butterfly survey.
Overall a nice morning. Finished reading The Naming of the Shrew, too. Here are the totals:
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