I blogged before about the small numbers of Sedge Warbles we are catching this year. August is usually the best month for both Sedge and Reed Warblers but this August the weather has done us no favors. However on the six mornings of suitable weather this month we have only caught 33 Sedge Warblers compared to 160 Reed Warblers. Usually we would expect to catch in a ratio of 2 to 1 in favour of Reed Warblers.
In our cath on Augut 15h at Leighton Moss RSPB we caught a female and a juvenile from a small party of Bearded Tits- the others went past the end of the nets. The Juvenile had a dark iris suggesting that it was recently fledged and was still in juvenile plumage with no sign of moult. The adult female had just started to moult with 8 old feathers suggesting that it had a brood that had fledged probably in early August. Bearded Tits can have three broods per season and on occasions we have caught birds still in juvenile plumage as late as Oct 6th.
John
The sedge warblers left very early at Middleton/Heysham in the fine July weather and there have not been any influxes of any size since. Quite a contrast to Whitethroat where ringing total is already an annual record at 170 with Sedge barely into three figures
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