Reed Bunting in the hand

A steady morning ringing with Hawky yesterday produced the following.

3 Reed Bunting
2 Redwing
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
7 Long tailed Tit
Dunnock
Robin
Blackbird (retrap)
11 Blue Tit
4 Great Tit

 
Adult male Reed Bunting (4)

1cy Male Reed Bunting 

Notice the pointed tail feathers on the above and below images and light brown T6 making ageing for both birds as 1cy (3) easy. If they had rounded tail feathers and have a strong black and white marks to T6 they would be aged as Adult (4)

1cy female Reed Bunting (3)

Redpolls

A short ringing session with Paul H produced 10 Lesser and 1 Common Redpoll, Yellowhammer, 2 Redwing, Robin, 2 Dunnock, Blackbird, Blue Tit and Great Tits. A total of 25 birds was a good return with the nets only up for just two hours.

Male Lesser Redpoll

Common Redpoll or north western above was a interesting bird in structure and having a wing of 75mm and a weight of 11.6g.

Male Yellowhammer

Ringing Fieldfare

With the weather being to wet and windy for ringing over the past two weeks it was nice to grab a morning session on Tuesday with Paul. A cold and misty morning which soon cleared produced 28 new birds. The highlights for both of us was two cracking Fieldfare both 3's (1cy)

 Male

Female

One method for sexing Fieldfare is to check the crown feathers, Male's have larger blackish centres.

Redwing

With 2 Redwing, 3 Blackbird, 5 Goldfinch, Dunnock. Wren, Chaffinch and Blue and Great Tits it was a real good mix.