A Jersey first for CES...

CES 6 today and the star of 65 birds caught was a Sedge Warbler ringed in Jersey.

  This is the first time that the group have seen a bird with a Jersey ring.

It was in a net with a female Sedge Warbler with a brood patch so possibly breeding on the reserve. Although we catch a lot of migrant Sedge Warblers in Spring and Autumn, looking back at previous years, we only catch one or two in late June / early July.
Of the 39 birds ringed, 28 were juvs, notably the first Reed Warbler (1J) and  first juv Treecreeper. Robins seem to be having a good breeding season and today we ringed the 24th juv on the reserve this year (11 by this CES last year). This one had started its post-juvenile moult with its red breast feathers growing.

Some retraps of note include a Blackbird ringed on our first session on the reserve in August 2008 and a Bullfinch from 2009 that we see every year.
All of the data we collect is sent to the BTO. It will be interesting to see if our impression of a better breeding season than last holds true when the data for all of the 120 CES sites is analyzed . See CES news 2013 for the results from the 2012 season.

** CES is the BTO Constant Effort Site scheme - a national standardised ringing programme that has been running since 1983