Routine BLUTI

Back in the Woods this weekend colour-ringing Blue Tits and furthering my training as a ringer. I am getting a lot more confident with extraction now, and what a better way to spend your weekend that handling birds such as Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Nuthatch, Robin and Goldcrest. 94 birds caught in this ringing session and 27 Blue Tits colour ringed. I managed to fit colour-rings to metal ringed retraps too which was a bonus as we now have some birds in the project that can be aged back to 2009 and before, which may prove to be the defining details of my results!

The others - Cia, Kane, Gillian and Chris enjoying some woodland ringing

Obligatory bite from a Blue Tit before release. It's weird, when you want to get birds caught for colour-ringing, the bite isn't as annoying as when you are just metal ringing them...
Sunday morning started with a net in Kane's garden catching 19 birds inc. 10 Goldfinch, 4 Blackbird, 1 Great Tit, 1 Robin, 1 Bullfinch and 2 Dunnock.
Following this netting session, we headed out to Crompton Lodges where we caught 3 Coot and 2 Canada Geese. This is my first darviced Coot, so it was interesting new experience. Affixing Black-headed Gull Darvics is a lot different and a lot easier if I'm honest!
Continuing the theme of routine of the past couple of weekends, I ended this weekend at Brockholes NR LWT twitching a goose!! Whilst at Preston Docks trying to catch some BHGulls, I got a text off Bill Aspin telling me about a Brent Goose at Brockholes. This was a site 2nd and the first one was a long time ago in the early 2000's long before I started going. Being so close, I thought I had to go, so I left Chris at Preston Station to get the train and I rushed off to Brockholes to meet about 25 other birders watching a Dark-bellied Brent Goose across the Ribble, in a field. This is not only a new race for Brockholes, I believe it's a new race for me in Lancashire (I could be mistaken!)

A great weekend all in all, and cheers to Kane for letting me stay and continuing with my Blue Tit study, and to the others for making it a 'banterous' weekend!