Migrants return home

Some good retraps yesterday to start our 4th CES season.
Returning migrants included a Garden Warbler ringed on the reserve in May 2009, a Blackcap ringed in 2010 and a Reed Warbler that was ringed as a juv last July.
Resident retraps included a Dunnock who still is not net shy having been caught 16 times since it was ringed in Sept 2008!
The first bird out of the net was not a CES species but rather nice all the same - this Jay certainly made himself heard.

Other species of the 40 ringed included a Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Whitethroats, 8 Blackcaps 7 Sedge Warblers and a Reed Warbler.
For the first time since we started doing CES it was not possible to put up the full 830 feet of nets.The water level in the reed bed is higher than we have ever seen and even with waders it was not feasible to put up the 4 x 60ft nets in there. Even one of our net rides which is usually only a bit muddy was under water at high tide.