It has been an excellent year to date for numbers of Willow Warblers ringed. The Group as a whole has ringed almost double last years total and there is still some time to go yet. That they are getting ready to depart was shown by this mornings capture of 31 birds of these 6 had started to accumulate fat. The heaviest was one at 9.8 with a fat score of 3.
By Contrast Reed Warbler and Sedge Warblers after a very successful first brood during the dry weather earlier in the season appear now to have had a very poor second or late broods with unusually low numbers being ringed over the past two weeks. One can only assume that this is due to the very wet July when we had 180% of normal rainfall.
Juvenile Reed Warblers are also showing signs of getting ready to migrate, one caught this morning had a fat score of 4 and a weight of 14.7 almost 3 grams above normal fat free weight.
Although we are talking about much smaller numbers ringed,it does appear that Grasshopper Warblers have also had a successful season
John
1 comment:
Whitethroat species seem to have done very well this year. As soon as the posting on Whitethroat parity was published, it signalled the start of what has been a relatively good passage of Common Whitethroat, whilst Lesser Whitethroat passage, given the fact there are not a lot to the north of here, reduced to the usual trickle. As a result, the revised ringing totals to date for Heysham Obs are: Common Whitethroat (72) and Lesser Whitethroat (40 plus one ringed elsewhere)
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