Nicole and I went ringing again at Alba Marsh very early in the morning. This was our first ringing trip for a month as I was away for Christmas and we were interested to see what had changed. We got to the site before sunrise and set up all five of our nets. One in a new area across some water with tamarisk scrub nearby. This net caught three birds including Water Pipit, Clamorous Reed Warbler and Bluethroat and looks like a reasonable place to set the net. Although there was not too much bid activity we caught 13 birds of five species with the addition to the above of Common Chiffchaff and Common Kingfisher. Nine birds were re-traps including six Clamorous Reed Warblers (see tomorrow post for more details), two Bluethroats and one Common Kingfisher. The Common Kingfisher is obviously wintering in the area as it was originally caught 5th October 2012, as are the Bluethroats, one of which was caught almost a year to the day ago showing they use the same sites to winter year after year. The only other birds caught were a single Common Chiffchaff and two Water Pipits of the race coutelli
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| Common kingfisher - female |
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| Common kingfisher - female |
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| Common kingfisher - female |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - male |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - male |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - male |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - male |
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| Bluethroat - female |
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| Bluethroat - female |
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| Water Pipit - A. s. coutelli |
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| Water Pipit - A. s. coutelli |