MARSH WARBLER at Whitlingham!

Yesterday evening and this mornings session at Whitlingham was still fairly busy despite many of our breeding birds having moved off. I'll update with the totals later but much more exciting than the totals was this beast of a Marsh Warbler that was unexpectedly pulled out of a bird bag by one of our newbies... before quickly being passed over. Not quite believing what we were processing we took all the necessary measurements which confirmed Marsh Warbler, obviously a first for the site.

Identification features of Marsh Warbler

Short, broad bill
Olive-toned
Emargination on p3 short of secondaries
Smaller notch on p2
Legs - pinkish yellow

Marsh Warbler

Reed Warbler

Marsh Warbler

Reed Warbler

Often a field (photographed) feature, emagination on p3 falls far short of secondaries, also note concolourous rump.

Notch length - 8.7mm (reed warbler > 9.5)

Legs pinkish yellow

  

400+ bird ringing weekend

This past weekend turned into quite the marathon with sessions running across the weekend at a range of sites. We welcomed a couple of new faces and had a fairly good turn out from the regulars.

Highlights -

Garden Tiger

Friday evening - Saturday morning - Whitlingham (East-side)
33 new whitethoats (now over 130 new birds ringed at this site this summer)
39 new Blackcaps

The moth trap produced a good number and varitey including several of these beautiful Garden Tigers

Saturday Evening - Norfolk Broads
58 Swallows caught in a roost catch.

1 Pied Wagtail

Sunday Morning - Norfolk Broads CES

After a very cold night a rather disappointing CES given the time of the year. A kingfisher improved the morning for Karl who's hierarchical privileges allowed him to ring this one (longest attending group member not to have ringed a KF).

Long-eared Bat - caught in the swallow roost

Sunday evening - Whitlingham (West-side)

21 Swallows caught in a roost catch.

Monday Morning - Whitlingham (West-side)

3 more Kingfishers

Norfolk Broads CES catch-up

Sedge Warbler - with his fat belgian bling

Got a bit behind on the CES updates, so in brief we did some CES sessions and we caught some birds. Totals not yet ready but I'll put them up when they are.

A couple of highlights were the discovery of a swallow roost at the sight (giving us something to do with extra nets the night before after setting up) and another highlight worth mentioning was a Belgian-ringed Sedge Warbler BRUSSELS 11162414.

After one of our Sedge Warblers was caught in Belgium last year, its nice to have it the other way around.