Yellow eyes

We went back to Paxton Pits to do a bit more pruning around our net rides. While we were working in one area of the site, we set a couple of nets in a quieter part. We only caught 10 birds, but this young male Sparrowhawk (hatched last year) was one of them!

 

We also caught a few Long-tailed Tits, including a bird first ringed in autumn 2009, so it's now in at least its sixth calendar year (as a minimum). Not bad for a little bird that's been through some hard winters.

Sawn off

Time for a bit of brush-cutting, tree-chopping and bush-bashing at Paxton Pits before the start of the 2014 ringing season...

Comma feasting on blackberries

Summer hawthorn leaves

Constant Effort baking and ringing

Nightingale!

This morning saw the year's first Constant Effort Site ringing visit to Paxton Pits. And it was a good one - 65 birds of 18 species caught in total, including 13 retraps (birds we'd ringed earlier).

The first bird out of the first net we put up was this Nightingale (probably a female), and we had another later (a male which sang as he flew off when we released him). We also caught Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Willow Warbler - but no Chiffchaff. We'll get them later in the season.

It's nice to have a sit down and something to eat during CES ringing (we start pre-dawn and finish around lunchtime). Last year I made a lot of flapjack but this year I'm going to try to produce 12 different baked delicacies.

Today's recipe was pineapple and carrot muffins. They went down well.

photos taken with iPhone

Speckled

Juvenile Green Woodpecker ringed today at Beeston

and a juvenile Nightingale at Paxton Pits

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D or Canon Powershot A640

6.47am

Dragged myself out of bed to get to Paxton for ringing at 4.50am... It was a lovely morning with a few nice things, including the first Nightingale I've ringed, juvenile Marsh Tit, Treecreeper, Song Thrush, Willow Warbler and Garden Warbler, loads of Robins, a couple of Reed Warblers and a Blackcap control (a bird ringed somewhere else).

I had to go to bed when I got home though.

photo taken with Canon Powershot A640

Inland birding

A jaunt southwards this morning to take in some of the delights that inland birding brings. What, Mallards, Great Crested Grebes and Green Woodpeckers? I hear you ask...



For once, no... Above: Great Northern Diver at Diddington Pit (part of the Paxton Pits complex). A rather too obliging bird that came too close to the shore and disappeared from view. Sometimes you just can't win.



Then, off to Grafham Water and the angling lodge at Mander CP. Superb views of a smashing little bird. The male Long-tailed Duck was also showing very well and diving all too frequently. In days gone by, I'd have been happy with getting really close views of a gorgeous seaduck, but now I WANT PHOTOS! Sadly, this record shot was all I could manage.

We could have driven the short distance to Needingworth and the drake American Wigeon, but opted instead to visit a site in an adjacent county, where we enjoyed some splendid Short-eared Owl action. Four birds were present, with two getting involved in some aerial claw-to-claw combat with each other.

To sum up, a good day's birding... I mean twitching...

digiscoped photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 62 with 16x eyepiece