Lesser Whitethroat

A smart juvenile Lesser Whitethroat caught at Thornton.

The grey eye and lack of white on the 5th tail feather(next to the outer) makes it one of this summers young.

This bird will most likely migrate south eastwards down through Italy or the Balkans and over winter south of the Sahara in northeast and central Africa. Common Whitethroats from Britain take a much more westerly route and end up in West Africa.

Last of the Treesparrows

Over the last couple of weeks, among other things, we managed to ring our last brood of 4 Treesparrow pulli. This has took our grand total to 101 ringed from 140 eggs laid and provided 25 nest records for the BTO Scheme, 3 of the boxes had a birds laying for a successful 4th time . More Swallows have been added bringing the total to 114 inc 63 pulli so far. Other species include 10 Blackcap (84 for the year), another 9 Whitethroat (78 for the year) 2 3J Marsh Tit, 2 3J Linnet, Redstart, Chiffchaff, Wheatear, Willow Warbler, 3 Meadow Pipit first of the Autumn, 2 3J Goldcrest first of the Autumn and a 5 year old Blackbird.

Whitethroat year

Another session at the sewerage works was sadly cut short by a brisk wind that came up. Before wind stopped play we were able to add yet more Whitethroats. This site alone has already produced 62 new individuals this year.

Ringing at Church Farm.

Reed Warbler. A ringing tick for me at Thornton and this juvenile possible evidence of breeding.

Plenty of Willow warblers were feeding in the recent plantings, especially the Willow.

A male Blackcap was out numbered by the 7 Whitethroats that we caught. The first capture of the day was this adult male Great Spotted Woodpecker. In total we had 24 birds of 11 species. We only caught one Sand Martin. This brings our total to 30 for the year at this site.

Warblers, warblers everywhere!

With just one 18m and a few single panel mist nets in scrub by Wigston sewerage works we ringed 70 birds in just 3 hours this morning. Most were Whitethroat with a secondry supporting cast of Blackcap, Willow/Chiff and the odd Lesser Whitethroat (above). The conditions were perfect, overcast and still following overnight drizzle. With more time and more nets we would easily have cleared 100 birds in the same time. We'll try that in the week ahead.

Last weekend we did a session at Watermead adding to the Reed Warbler totals. The reed bed was (unsurprisingly) silent. The clear impression was that the local breeders have just got on with it and many have already dispersed.