Back to Wales and news of a wandering Great Spot

Back in the UK after a very rewarding 5 weeks ringing for Costa Rica Bird Observatories.
As soon as the weather allows I will be swapping ringing tables for our less Spanish version on the Teifi!

Keen eyed readers will notice the familiar rings. Porzana UK make the rings for CRBO but important to keep remembering as we use them that our AAs are A's there, A's are B's etc...

In the last blog, my stay in the mountains was just about to end but I didn't leave before ringing a Dusky Nightjar, a species not often caught in Costa Rica

so not a lot of information about ageing and sexing them. Adult males have white tips on the outer tail feathers and a more pronounced collar.

The sound recording on this link about Dusky Nightjars is a nice reminder of the call that we heard every morning as we opened our nets and at dusk too.

Now home, I have looked up some of the retraps on copies of our banding sheets from our previous visits over the last 3 years...

Nice to find that a retrap Yellow-thighed Finch was ringed on our first visit in 2012.

 Quite a dull looking bird until you look at it's thighs...

Knowing the age of some retraps is helpful to our understanding of the moult of some of the tricky species,  this one a Yellowish Flycatcher

To finish my Costa Rica blogs (but Richard will be blogging from there for another 5 weeks), a perky young Collared Redstart, always a pleasure to see and straightforward to age!

Hopefully a return to Costa Rica Bird Observatory at Madre Selva before too long.

Back to local news, as Paddy mentioned on the Pembs ringing blog, along with a Yellow-browed Warbler he controlled a juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker at his CES wood in Llandilo, Pembs on the 1st October. It was ringed in Richard's garden in Boncath on the 29th June. Only 16km but still an interesting movement over the Preseli Hills

Another recovery report received from the BTO this week was a Sedge Warbler ringed on the Teifi Marsh in May 2014 controlled by Kelvin Jones at Llyn Ystumllyn in Gwynedd on the 7th August this year. (100km). The same Sedge Warbler was also at Llyn Ystumllyn 5 weeks before on the 29th June.