Another Eastern Gem... this time a Pallas's

This was Iain's first "ringing tick"
 since the group started a few years
ago so he seemed pretty happy. 

A last minute decision to go down to Waxham for one last time this Autumn (for me anyway) paid off with this beautiful Pallas's Warbler that graced our nets late morning. I think it was probably fresh in as it was in the caught on the seaward side of the outer bushes and we would hopefully have caught it earlier if it had been there all morning, also it was not with a flock whereas later in the day it had joined a lotti flock. It was quite short-winged so therefore sexed as a female. We also continued to catch plenty of redpolls.

Stayed overnight for another catch on Monday morning, I shouldn't have bothered, the wind got up a lot overnight and we caught just 4 birds. 1 chiffchaff, 1 redpoll, 1 songthrush and 1 retrap robin...

Waxham Ringing (YBW, redpolls and controls)

At last, some Easterly winds! This tied in with some free time and finally we got out to Waxham for the first and possibly only time this autumn. We spent three days (12th-14th October) at Waxham and these resulted in some great catches. The first on the 13th being pictured above, this was caught amazingly in our triangle of nets out in the field for catching Meadow Pipits! The second highlight was a haul of 120 lesser redpolls on the 14th, slightly disappointing however was also on the 14th - shortly after Will found a Siberian Chiffchaff hopping round on the ground we watched it go straight into one of out nets before soon after flying out... doh, at the same time an unringed ybw was meters from the net but not going in... also NO BLUETAIL for us! Infuriating!

Congrats to every other ringer on the coast which all seem to have had a bluetail! They're common birds anyway...

Controls (anyone recognise these?) LESRE Y395783 & L530291, MEAPI L694287

(retraps)
(*controls)

A bit of a catch up.

Due to a ringing expedition to Georgia for myself, Ross Crates (ex UEA) and Stephen Menzie (See here - birdingandphotography.blogspot.com) I haven't been keeping the blog updated, so here's a brief catch-up.

Broads Swallow Roost

A couple of us did a swallow roost in the broads back on September 3rd, It was quite successful and we caught a total of 101 birds 96 new swallows, 3 Sand Martins and 2 Controls (L844574 & Y228006).

Campus & Whitlingham demonstrations for students

Species	Whitlingham 26/9/11	UEA  27/9/11	Total	Notes
Wren	6(1)	1	8	Retrap from 2011
Blackcap	14(1)	3	18	Retrap 2011
Robin	2(2)	6(1)	11	Retraps from 2010 and 2011
Dunnock	3(2)	7	12
Blackbird	1	5	6
Great tit	18(3)	16(5)	42	2 retraps from 2009, 1 from 2010
Blue tit	19(7)	29(11)	66	1 control. 1 bird from cringleford
Treecreeper	1(1)	1	3	Retrap from 2011
Chaffinch	3(1)	6	10	Retrap from 2010
Goldcrest	1	1	2
Goldfinch	3	17(1)	21	Retrap from 2011
Long tailed tit	16(2)	4	22	Retraps from 2011
Chiffchaff	2	2	4
Greenfinch	1	41	42
Green woodpecker	1		1
Song thrush		1	1
	111	158	269

Campus Sessions

We also did a couple of campus sessions catching a further 100 or so birds, mostly tits and finches, including the first redpoll of the autumn.