Scarce passage migrant twitch ringing!

We had a scarce passage migrant visitor mid week in the shape of Richie Hearn from WWT Slimbridge, always a welcome addition to the year's list. Last bird he ringed was red breasted goose in Bulgaria (and probably Brazilian Merganser in Brazil before that) so it was no wonder he was looking a bit glum when he was given some juvy linnet rtps to look at!

His face brightened up a bit when he was told there was a linnet brood needing ringing though.......a pullus ringing tick for him!

He dipped on mipit pullus (already ringed) and goldfinch and whitethroat which were too wee to ring.

We are onto the last of first brood linnets now and building well underway for 2nd broods. We had a nice example of 'rabbit syndrome' typical of some of these carduellis finches last week. As we approached a gorse bush containing a nest with c10 day old chicks we noticed the female arriving with nest material closely followed by the male. Once the female disappeared into her new nest (about a metre from the 1st nest) the male nipped over to the first nest to feed the chicks and came back over with a faecal sack in beak just in time to accompany the female away for more nest material........TOTALS!


Raymond, Calum and Euan