Nightingales, Owls galore and the odd Kestrel too!

After a couple of weeks of silence I shall elaborate on what has been a productive period of time.

30/04- Owl season is is starting to liven up. Little Owls being the main target as these are single brood early nesters.

Nice start to the day, what a beauty!

One of 53 females this year so far.

Personally one of my favourite shots, the 'Owlman' with his owls.

Thats a photo of each of the targetted species for Bob, Alan, I and others in the summer.

12/05 A new 'Ring Tick'.

This one involved boats, an added complication but a good laugh! Little Egret's were the target, very lovely little chicks to ring, an added bonus as I did my first at the same time as Alan did his!



14/05- Nightingales take two!

After another earlyish start we went on search of the same Nightingale that had evaded us previous attempt. With prior knowledge the bird was likely to be a retrap of last years individual, my spirits remained undamped as to glance upon the best of british bird songstars in the hand.

A good Whitethroat comparison shot, Common on the left, Lesser to the right.

Next came Mr Nightingale, a retrap as I expected, the 100th bird to be ringed by the group since its beginnings.

After the sucessful completition of missing Nightingale we decided to have a run around the Tawny boxes and pick off the few remaining chicks unrung in Bob's boxes. It has been a great year with 60+ birds ringed.

Cute as you like!
And finally onto today 22/05. We started by doing the tit boxes in the local woods with a near enough 100% occupancy (but not quite, weirdly enough box number 13 was empty, talk about unlucky for some!)

After getting through the tits, we went and did a bit of owling but with an added little ring tick surprise!

Lapwing chick, few and far between with the mass of corvids on the prowl. Another beautiful bird!

So ends the update, Peregrine chicks loom on yonder horizon...