Wednesday 28 December 2011

Blown away by 9/9!!!

On a night when we had trouble standing up, let alone manage to hold the net steady, we were delighted to catch 9 Woodcock out of 9 seen. We don't get a huge density on our sites so to see 9 on just a short 4km wander was very nice. It seems that adults have moved in as 7 out of the 9 were adults, a much higher proportion than previously this season.
The feather markings on Woodcock are quite variable but this bird was notable by the tiny triangles on it's primaries - they seemed much smaller than any we have seen before.
Two of the birds we caught were retraps. EW93661 we ringed just across the road a couple of weeks ago. EX37965 was more interesting - we ringed that on 22nd Feb this year. That is now our 3rd retrap from a previous season. Now what we want to know is where our site faithful birds go for the summer.

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