Roundup Day 8

A day curtailed by a little rain and the need to prepare our ringing equipment for site handover to our colleagues of team 2.  However we ringed a very good 105 birds of which no less than 18 were Bluethroats  

Adult male Bluethroat

This means that so far this week we have ringed 88 of these handsome birds.

 Last evening as stated in our day 7 round up we did a late evening wader event,  Dunlin and Ringed Plover were ringed making our total for the trip as of this evening 160 Dunlin and 45 Ringer Plover.

The birdwatching highlight was a pair of adult Sabine's gulls feeding with Kittiwakes out in the bay unfortunately shortly after we spotted the feeding gulls they were also spotted by Arctic Skuas who harassed them until they flew off, much to the chagrin of your blogger who had just walked around a slippery headland with a camera and long lens only to find the target gone.

Adult Red-throated pipit

    

The bird of the day was our first adult Red-throated pipit  We have been waiting for this bird all week as it enabled us to confirm the differences between this species and its Meadow Pipit cousin.  These differences are clear in the adult bird but much less so in juvenile birds.  It is embarrassing for a ringer unfamiliar to a bird species to proudly announce that he has the differences clearly understood to then release the bird and have it give the call of the other species (they are different)......  not that that would happen to such an experienced group as ourselves, oh no,

A shorter blog tonight as we have guests arriving (team 2) and we have to tidy up, you know how it is
Here are the ringing totals for today




17-Aug
Greenfinch
3
Brambling
2
Common Redpoll
3
Reed Bunting
3
Bluethroat
18
Meadow Pipit
20
Red-throated pipit
6
Willow Warbler
34
Fieldfare
4
Redwing
1
Dunlin
7
Ringed Plover
4


Species Count
12
Total
105