W is for Wednesday, Wheats, Wilwas and Whiwas

We started Wednesday with an early morning session at Mwnt with our spring traps.
Before we had finished setting up our 2 shelf net in the valley, the first Northern Wheatears were already in the traps.

Four Wheatears were caught including a nice big, bright Greenland Wheatear with a 107mm wing.
The real surprise of this morning's migrant fall were 6 Willow Warblers and 2 Chiffchaffs in a 2 shelf net together. Nice to hear the first Grasshopper Warbler of the spring reeling.

Continuing with the Willow Warbler theme, the bird in the photo was caught during some afternoon garden ringing. The first Willow Warbler ever ringed in the garden.
We finished the day with a couple of nets at our Mallard site on the Teifi Marsh. The surprise of the evening wasn't a bird in a net but a Tufted Duck on Mallard pond!

White Wagtails are on the move in small numbers. 2 caught this evening with 4 Pied Wagtails, 2 new Reed Buntings for our RAS project and always nice to retrap a Cetti's Warbler.

Today was the first visit to our Mwnt migration monitoring site by Ryan, one of our trainees. A chance for him to use spring traps and our mobile 2 shelf nets.

We will see what Mwnt delivers in the morning.

(Text by Wendy and title by Richard!!)