Minding your P's and Q's

Our group was given another lie-in on Saturday morning courtesy of Mick who again arrived at the res early to erect nets and get the tape lures on before sunrise. Simon - a former trainee - visited us again this week to complete filming our activities. Happily, there was plenty to record because when the fog lifted, the captures rose sharply. Dave, Peter and I carried out the ringing while Mel and Mick did continuous net rounds keeping us with such a constant supply of birds that it was after 10:00 before we were able to grab a coffee and a bite to eat.

Simon was in need of some audio for his film - us giving the data to the scribe. As a group, we do enjoy a bit of banter between birds and when he began recording, minding our P's and Q's was rather a challenge! There was a collective sigh of relief when he had filmed enough and we could talk normally once more, lol.

Hats off to Adam and Dave for staying awake...Adam came out a little later after finishing night shift and Dave had pulled an all-nighter too, though in a much more pleasant way after a night's ringing with the Wash Waders. As well as Simon, local birder Ian popped in for a while. They couldn't have picked a better day to join us. We captured 186 new birds including 47 Chiffchaff, 10 Lesser Redpoll, 7 Meadow Pipit, one each of Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat followed by an assortment of more usual species. The top scorer of the day was 93 Blackcap including a Portuguese control, our first from this country. The day was concluded with the usual trip to the White Hart.

Portuguese ring