Sunday April 10

 What's the opposite of a purple patch? Whatever it is, I seem to be experiencing it at the moment. This morning's attempt to break the log jam mostly took place at Morton Bagot. The wind has vaguely swung into the south-west and was very light. Ideal conditions for ringing.

I headed towards Stapenhill Wood where Tony and Leigh had set their nets. On the way, a scan of the fields produced no Wheatears, just Skylarks. I counted about eight larks and a similar number of Linnets. 

Skylark

The ringers greeted me with a list of birds processed, the scarcest being a Marsh Tit. I decided to press on to the flash field where the water level remains high, and the birds...well, remain. Still four Avocets, two Shelducks, three Shovelers, eight Teal and three Lapwings.

I got back to the ringers in time to see a female Goldfinch and a Wren being extracted with great care from a mist net.

The Goldfinch

The Wren

At least the sun was out, and the late morning warmed sufficiently to produce a Small Tortoiseshell. 

Small Tortoiseshell

As a last throw of the dice I decided to go to the big field at Middletown in the hope of finding a Wheatear (I'm starting to get obsessed). 

Not a Wheatear in sight. Instead a tractor was scouring the surface and the flock of Golden Plovers was in flight. I whipped the camera out and pressed record. In my mind's eye the best way to eliminate any thoughts of Lesser Golden Plover types was to film the underwing to establish whether any had grey axillaries. What I actually found was that this is a fool's errand. Even in bright conditions the underwings flashed white or grey according to the light. What I did establish was that there were 61 Golden Plovers, none looked small, and none showed feet protruding from the tail tip. 

The ringing data for the morning at Morton Bagot was quite impressive, and is as follows:

Blue Tit 13 (7)

Great Tit 7 (2)

Marsh Tit 1

Long-tailed Tit 2 (2)

Blackcap 1

Chiffchaff 2

Treecreeper 1

Wren 5 (1)

Blackbird 2

Song Thrush 1

Dunnock 1

Chaffinch 1

Goldfinch 11 (1)

Bullfinch 1

As usual re-traps are shown in brackets. Tony and Leigh have kindly shared some of their photographs with me.

Marsh Tit

Treecreeper

Marsh Tits are resident in several of the woods around Redditch, but nowhere are they common. Two or three pairs of Treecreeper territories are generally found at Morton Bagot, but they are unobtrusive birds and a nice prize in the hand.