Abdullah Alsuhaibany and I went ringing for a
day at Either Mangroves trying to catch Mangrove White-eye so we could obtain
blood samples for analysis. We got to the site at 05:30 when the temperature
was already 30 degres Celsius and humidity at 95%. The high tides also made the
ground where the nets were to be set very soft and sticky meaning that we had
to wade their with bare feet, quite painful with the mangrove roots. We set four
nets over a 750 metre long stretch on the mangroves but the high temperature,
humidity and distance from net to net made ringing extremely taxing. I know for
certain I was more tiered after this ringing session than any other I have
done. At the end of the day it took 1.5 hours to take down four nets and
process that normally takes twenty minutes. We did have a good day however,
with seven Mangrove Warblers, three Mangrove White-eyes, two Collared
Kingfishers, one Clamourous Reed Warbler (not the Clamourous (Indian) Reed
Warblers we catch in the east of the Kingdom) and one retrapped African
Collared Dove. Not many birds for all the hard work but three more samples of
the Mangrove White-eye and three more sets of Biometrics to look at.
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| Mangrove Reed Warbler |
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| Mangrove Reed Warbler |
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| Mangrove Reed Warbler |
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| Mangrove White-eye |
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| African Collared Dove |
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| Clamorous Reed Warbler |