Oxwich NNR ringing
A grey overcast morning with a light but keen breeze, the "Snipe" nets were set and yielded one Common Snipe, a good start.
The rest of the morning seemed busy but was in fact a slow one but with a good mix of birds, including Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Siskin, Goldcrest Robin, Dunnock and Chiffchaff.
One of the Robins looked interesting as it had a grey wash to its back and wings, we initially though that it may be a continental bird, you would expect a slighter longer wing than the 72mm we measured as birds which tend to migrate also tend to have slightly longer wings, so who knows?
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| A definite grey wash to the wings and mantle |
The Chiffchaff was a nice find, it had been buzzing around the bushes behind the net for a while before being caught.
Initially I thought it may be the first returning migrant but it had a fat score of 3 so possible an over winterer and not a traveller from the south, usually birds arriving from the Mediterranean have "pollen horns" on their foreheads where they have been delving into flowers, not so on this chap.
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| Chiffchaff, the first of many this season.... |
We packed up around 10:30am.
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