10 October 2010

I woke up this morning but I’m still in the dark

Did two lengths of 'The Mighty V' this morning with very little to show for it. 'Highlights' included: Brambling and Hobby (this one?) at either end of Farmfield, five Golden Plover heading east, and a Wheatear at the bottom of Saltmarsh. Pretty steady passage overhead included: 15 Skylark, 80+ Swallow, 5 House Martin, 25+ Siskin and 2 Redpoll amongst larger numbers of other finches and Mipits.

Having pootled around for four hours or so, I headed back to Castle Aberquimcum and, just five minutes from the door, received news that a Lapland Bunting had been seen at Goldcliff Pill,... why I oughta!

Meanwhile, whilst peering over the fence at the blog next door, I noticed one of the "Cossy Tits" seems to be bearing a ring of Gwentish origin. Unfortunately, due to Beardies, frankly annoying, habit of a complete post-juvenile moult, we might not be able to individually identify the bird but stay tuned, hopefully, all the other birds on that string were female.

[Addendum: it transpires that we have only ringed four Bearded Tits on the 'L57****' sequence: an adult female, two first year females and an adult male, all caught on 12th September 2010. As a result, the Cosmeston bird becomes our first recovery,... thanks to Mr. Mitchell.]

No comments: