Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

 Things are not normal at present. Lyn is slowly improving her balance and confidence following unexpected back pain a few days before the Red-backed Shrike was found. In the meantime I have largely been housebound, doing all I can to facilitate her recovery.

So there have been no Morton Bagot visits aside from an hour last week sitting in a chair at Netherstead with Tony, watching his mist nets catch absolutely no birds.

However, the ringers have supplied me with one item for this blog. 

Back on January 3 2020, just before anyone had even heard of Covid19, they caught a first-winter male Blackbird at Netherstead. Scroll forward to March 14 2021, that same Blackbird was pulled out of a mist-net at Ithala, Raiso, Turku-Pori, FINLAND. Here is a map to show its journey.

So this bird probably spent the summer of 2020 in Finland or maybe further east, before wintering again somewhere in western Europe (maybe the UK) and then returning to Finland where it was caught in mid March 2021 en-route to it final destination. The exact details can never be known but the two points on the map above are certain. Think about this next winter when you are watching the local Blackbirds hopping around your garden, they may not have come from next door but one.

Speaking of birds from far away, our predicament has coincided with some pretty extraordinary local rarities. A Blyth's Reed Warbler (perhaps from Russia) has taken up residence by the river Tame in Staffordshire. I would love to go and see it, but its a two hour walk (there and back) from Middleton RSPB. So even if I saw it immediately I would have been out of the house for a whole morning, and at present that is not possible. 

Closer to home, and almost as rare, a Melodious Warbler was found on the Lickey Hills on Saturday. At the time of its discovery, it too was out of range. There was no news next day and I assumed it had gone. But yesterday it reappeared. Lyn had made progress, and I had a two hour slot. I went for it.

The first hour was spent getting there and wandering around in roughly the area I imagined it to be. I had given up and was heading back when I met a couple of purposefully striding birders. One was Clive Lee, and he knew where it had been seen. It turned out I had been about 200 yards from where I should have been, and the bird was still there and singing strongly.

I quickly saw it really well, got the camera pointed, zoomed in and...it dropped out of sight. Sorry, you'll have to put up with a short recording of its song with the camera in video-mode.

Rather gallingly I eventually relocated the bird on a birch further into the foliage. I could see it clearly, but the camera couldn't cope with foreground leaves and all I got was a blurred image (which I won't be sharing).

I am hopeful that things will be back to normal (our normal) by the weekend.