Tony K tipped me off that he would be doing some ringing from dawn at Morton Bagot this morning. With several Wrynecks being found in Warwickshire and Worcestershire in the last two weeks, I left the house pre-dawn with a shopping list of improbable rarities in mind. Perhaps impossible might be more appropriate.
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| Sunrise |
I arrived in time to assist (slightly) Tony erect some nets, and before long he had his first Meadow Pipit. These were the focus of this morning's session, and I had to mentally knock Wryneck off the list of birds to be hoped for.
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| Meadow Pipit |
Unfortunately I was not able to stay very long, and after failing to encourage a Whinchat to approach one of the nets, I returned home to help Lyn. By the time I returned, Tony was packing up. He had caught 20 Meadow Pipits, a Whitethroat, six Blue Tits, a Great Tit, and a Reed Bunting. It's not Fair Isle I'm afraid.
For the next two hours I trudged round a part of the patch, and accumulated a pretty decent chat score. Two Whinchats, and five Stonechats was a better return than my last visit.
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| Whinchats |
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| Stonechats |
The field which had held the nets was busy with birds. I counted a minimum of 60 Meadow Pipits, 38 Swallows, 12 House Martins, and at least one Skylark. The morning was warming up, and I had the feeling that they were all feeding up on flying insects before continuing south.
The flash field was slightly disappointing; 33 Teal, a Mallard, two Green Sandpipers, and four Snipe. However, a single Sand Martin was the first since the spring.
Another new arrival was a young Mute Swan on the Kingfisher Pool, again the first for a long while.
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| Mute Swan |
I had a few jobs to do from midday, so had to abandon the site for another day.
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