Jetty 8 - 2015

On the 31/07/15 ‏Jeremy and his youngest Robin had a very quiet morning at the Jetty. It totaled just 13 birds, 10 new and 3 Retraps. The breakdown was: 

Sedge warbler 1 ( 1), Reed Warbler 7 ( 1 ) , Sand Martin 1, Willow Warbler 1, Blue Tit ( 1 ) Reed Warbler Adult Retrap. 

The nets were up from 05.45 to 09.35, It was very cold, misty early on , till the sun burnt the mist away, then the sun was on nets making them visible to the birds. Very good numbers of Sand Martins about c 300, 100 + of which were landing on the reed bed to the west of the hide, a tape was played for them for an hour but only managed to attract the one! 

Jermey commented 'Is it time to get the tapes on?'

This final RAS visit brought our catch to 32 different Reed Warblers, which we had ringed in previous years. Unfortunately, 10 of the birds from last year had been ringed as youngsters, so wouldn't count towards the current year's RAS. The breakdown of the recaptures was 2014 - 15, 2013 - 8, 2012 - 7 and 2010 - 2. There ought to have been a few birds from 2011 in the reedbeds (we had a decent catch in 2011 - see below), but they must have spent most of their time in areas that we weren't netting.

In July, we ringed a total of 553 birds (a respectable total when you consider the Goose roundup was in June), which brings our YTD total yo 1409. It looks like we are on our way to another very high year catch, in recent years, the highest year/July totals were 2014 - 2436/1101; 2011 - 2460/1074; 2010 - 3014/1103; 2004 - 3355/1412.