Gropper Bagged!

It was nice to catch my first Grasshopper Warbler of the year , after a " dip" in 2014.

 One of my favourite birds.

Lets hope they have a good year in 2015.

New Species for Hicks Lodge!

 Thought this might be a new species, Swallow Tailed Warbler!

 Just a Chiff that was regrowing part of its tail.

 A returning Blackcap was good to catch and indicates that the habitat is attractive to this species.

In total we only caught 11 birds, but four Wilwa including a control was nice. Surprisingly the new species for the site was in the form of a female Chaffinch, taking our site species total to 33.

Blackcap returns.

I only caught one bird this morning at Thornton, but it was an old friend!

 At first I thought it might be a second summer bird returning from last year.  There was some brown in the head. Not obvious in this image , but certainly in the one below.

 The first and 6th tail feathers were not pointed although I thought they might be more rounded if it was an older bird.

 All the greater coverts seemed the same.

You can see some brown in this image.
In fact I had first rung this bird on 3rd April 2011 as a second summer, so it is returning for its sixth summer. I had also retrapped it on 9/7/13.