Saturday 19th March 2016
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? 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 Mediterrane