Dawn Monday 21st calm cloudy excellent ringing weather. We worked a site in the middle of Leighton Moss reed bed in the hope of catching Bearded Tits. We were not expecting a great catch as the Bearded Tit population is low this year after last winters severe weather. First round of our three nets produced nothing. Second round a Wren and a Penduline Tit. A ringing tick for the group and only the second record for the Moss and North Lancashire. Out came Svenssoon and on the data there it was a male on the amount of black around the eye and a first winter bird on the colour of the greater coverts. Duly ringed processed and photographed. Unfortunately the images from my mobile phone camera were not so good so I include one that I prepared earlier from my friend Janusz Stepniewski with whom I ringed Penduline Tits in Poland in 2009. Our session ended with the only Bearded Tits of the morning - a pair with consecutive ring numbers, ringed together in mid October re-trapped together 10 days later and together again today. Very typical of Bearded Tits . From our ringing they form pairs shortly after fledging and remain together, if they both survive of course, right through the winter ad breed together in spring.
At home entering the data for the last two days ringing on the IPMR programme found that we had retrapped a Marsh Tit at our woodland feeding station that was ringed five years and 35 days ago. The Group's oldest Marsh Tit by far.
John
John
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