Sunday July 24 - Spernall STW

 This morning I was invited to join Tony and Leigh at a ringing session at the private Spernall STW. It was great to get to be inside looking out, and not the opposite. The site is quite extensive with loads of filter beds choc a bloc with Pied Wagtails (c30), at least six Grey Wagtails, and about 150 Starlings.

Numerous Gulls and corvids hung around, including at least 15 Herring Gulls and 70 Black-headed Gulls. The small lagoon contained at least 40 Mallard, and a couple of Grey Herons and nothing else. Well it is still July after all.

While Tony and Leigh got down to the business of catching stuff, I wandered around the periphery and was rewarded with a brief burst of song and some calls from an unseen Cetti's Warbler, and a calling Kingfisher.

I returned in time to get some shots of some of the birds caught.

Juvenile Blackcap

Adult male Greenfinch

Juvenile Pied Wagtail

In the course of my stroll around I had half heard, and then seen very distantly, a possible Yellow Wagtail flying around. In the end I decided the views weren't good enough to count it, which made it just a little galling that while I was in the process of leaving, in the course of closing their traps Tony and Leigh found this:

Juvenile Yellow Wagtail

Another gripping shot

And another.

That'll teach me for being the first to leave ! It is tempting to think it may have been raised locally.

The full results were:

Blue Tit 17

Great Tit 2 (1)

Whitethroat 2

Blackcap 6

Blackbird 1

Robin 2

Dunnock 2

Pied Wagtail 3

Yellow Wagtail 1

Greenfinch 8

Goldfinch 2

There is of course no entry to this locked site, but extremely poor views can be had from a footpath on the opposite side of the river Arrow.