Idiot at dawn

I got up at daft o’clock this morning and walked to my ringing site at Longshaw to put up a couple of nets in the usual rides. I didn’t expect to catch much but knew that would give me time to bird the immediate area in between net rounds. Whitethroats have arrived in the last few days with 4 males singing. Most of the Chiffchaffs have gone quiet now that they are paired up but about half of Willow Warblers are still singing along with the 3 Blackcaps. There was no sign of any passage overhead other than 1 Swallow north in what would be best described as a near birdless sky.

The nets produced:

Willow Warbler- 2 (+2 retraps)

Blackcap- 1

Robin – 1

Total-4 (+2 retraps)

Returned home by 10:30 and decided to have a full coronary for breakfast (fry up). Whilst in the kitchen I noticed a Blue Tit collecting nesting material from a hanging basket on the garage. Luckily it stayed long enough for me to take a few snaps through the kitchen window. They haven’t turned out too bad considering they were taken through double glazing that doesn’t get cleaned that often. This bird has presumably failed once and is on a second nesting attempt.



Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) collecting nest material from a hanging basket. Still a Parus to me.


Later in the afternoon a juvenile Blackbird posed on the bird table and in an adjacent birch tree. This bird and its two siblings have been around for almost two weeks now. It hung around just long enough for me to grab a few photos and again they haven’t turned out too bad given they were taken through a double glazed window.

Juvenile Blackbird (Turdus merula)