Day 18 - The Last Morning

Final morning this morning and we were still keen to make the most of the area so nets were being opened at 04.30 with the intention of running the whole site and closing down as the different rides fell quiet. As it turned out the morning was busy with an abundance of pipits in the marsh, two new species (for Team 2), and a few interesting birds out on the fjord.

Conditions were cold until the final takedown at around 09.00 when the sun showed through to overheat everyone taking down nets. Through the short session that we had the wind was cold and brisk coming in from the east.

The marsh started strongly and was jumping with pipits. The most successful line was the three fine nets which caught a lot of new birds with surprisingly few retraps.

The 60' two shelf that had been put up a couple of days earlier for Fieldfare caught our first new species of the day in the shape of a wheater.

At the same time the feeder net had attracted the attention of a somewhat larger bird -  a juvenile female Merlin seen her watching or being watched by Shaun; it's not quite clear which.

 Lapland buntings were also present though not in quite such large numbers as yesterday.

We also had a second Sedge Warbler (Team 1 having ringed the first) and six Dunnocks.

Unfortunately no photos exist of the Dunnocks.

 Brambling were absent today and there were only two Red Throated Pipits amongst the forty nine new Meadows that were ringed and we were denied any further chances to get our eyes in with the Arctic Redpoll.

During the session there was also time for the ususal scans of the fjord. Amongst the usual crowd of gulls we also had puffins, kittiwakes, arctic skuas, gannet, and red-necked phalaropes.









So, for the last time (for this year at least) the day's totals are:

    27-Aug
Common Redpoll    7
Lapland Bunting    6
Reed Bunting    9
Bluethroat    4
Meadow Pipit    49
Red-throated pipit    2
Dunnock    3
Wheatear    1
Willow Warbler    14
Sedge Warbler    1
Fieldfare    1
Redwing    2
Merlin    1
   
   
   
New Birds   
Species Count    13
Total    100