Acros in the Autumn.....and a juvenile Water Rail at CES

Last week on Wednesday and Thursday we took advantage of a couple of promising windows in the weather to ring at our Mallard site where we specialise in the study of  passage Sedge and Reed Warblers. A promising start to our season with c 40 Acros caught and we plan to ring at this site in the coming days.
Below a view from the end of Aqua 1 net ride across Mallard Pond towards the new hide.

This map shows our Sedge Warbler controls and recoveries, with a great proportion of movements along the  French Atlantic coast.

LATEST NEWS  - a first recovery for Goodwick Moor, a new site for us that Karen is developing.
A Sedge Warbler caught on the 23rd April 2017 had been ringed the previous August in Finistere, NW France.  We have had several birds move between the Teifi and the Trunvel, Treogat site.

We are likely to be catching a mix of local and early migrants in these mid July sessions, but they also help our RAS studies on both Reed Warblers and Reed Bunting, we colour ring the latter species too.

A reminder to look out for colour ringed birds.

The  highlight so far  - a couple of juvenile Grasshopper Warblers, we catch a few during late July.

During calm evenings we have managed a couple of Swallow roosts, here is Tristian a new trainee enjoying some processing of Swallows.

We managed CES 9 on Monday and perhaps a little quiet but we did process 46 new 22 recaptures, including this  juvenile Water Rail, our 4th capture on the marsh and our 2nd at the CES site. The 1st back in early August 2009.

We have great hopes for the week ahead in terms of our activities, we could do with the weather being a little more helpful. Several sessions for Acros, a final sesssion for the Linnet RAS project and CES likely next weekend.