The birds less ringed

Not so cold today and thankfully a lot less windy, it felt almost warm by comparison with yesterday. The overcast almost calm conditions should have been ideal for mist netting and everything was set up for a ringing session this morning, however the birds had other ideas and almost four hours ringing resulted in barely ten birds being caught. Admittedly the target species are Siskin, Redpoll and other finches, it would always be possible to catch lots of Blue and Great Tits. The finches are mostly visitors from further north, perhaps just from Scotland or possibly Scandinavia and there are also the birds that can be caught already ringed somewhere else.

Other things today went better, the pole for our Osprey nest site arrived, all we have to do now is get it upright and put a nest on top, should be easy, shouldn't it? The installation of the video equipment also proceeded and we now have live pictures from the Woodland hide on view in the foyer of the Education Centre.

I understand that the Smew was once again on Rockford Lake although it was flying about a good bit, so perhaps it is thinking of going somewhere. The duck Red-crested Pochard was still on Ellingham pound, seeming quite settled there with a few Coot and a handful of Tufted Duck. On Ivy Lake at dusk (see picture above) one of the Mute Swan cygnets appears to have left following the aggressive chasing from the parents yesterday. Also reported today was a Raven over Ibsley Water, as it was calling it is probable there were two as single birds rarely seem to call much.