Record number of Reed Buntings to start November

Long enough windows in the weather to give us a chance to put up nets have been annoyingly non existent recently. This week we have managed a couple of short but very worthwhile sessions before wind and rain returned.
Today in a couple of hours we caught 55 birds, 50 new and 5 retrap. We hoped for some Redwing and first round there were two in the net. This one was the first of the year caught in fields at home earlier in the week.

The biggest surprise of the morning was to catch a massive 30 Reed Buntings to add to our colour ringing project. 27 were new birds and 3 retrap including one ringed as a juvenile in 2010 which was retrapped in 2011 and 2013 but not this year until today. A good opportunity for Ryan, our trainee, to get to grips with colour ringing.

(And yes, the sun did shine briefly today before the torrential rain and wind arrived this afternoon!)

Other species ringed included Wrens, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Cetti's Warbler, a Chiffchaff and four Meadow Pipits, a species that we rarely caught on the Teifi Marshes until this year.

With the current forecast slowing us down here, it is more than likely that the next blog will be from Richard in Costa Rica. He continues to study some fantastic birds like this Black-cowled Oriole for Costa Rica Bird Observatory

A landmark passed today - 100,000 page views of the blog since Tommy started it back in 2009 as means of sharing pictures around the group. Many thanks to all those who take the time to have a look to see what we are up to.