The week started with a few birds left over from the fall at the end of last week, and by half way through the week we had only 155 birds ringed. Winds were forecast to go to the south-east on Thursday night so we were hopful for Friday morning. What happened was mega with large flocks of bird coming in off the sea Redwing, Song Thrushes, Robins, Chiffchaffs, Blackbirds, Siskin, Brambling and loads more.
Ths highlight was 3 Great Grey Shrikes in the hand at the same time. Libby ringed Ring Ouzel and Redstart
on the last morning to add to the 7 new ringing ticks she had during the week.
We left the island at 3pm on Saturday with thousands of bird still there, our final total was 453 but could have been double that with a little better organisation.
Gary
An update on the WTE pictured above from Ewan Weston (he & Jenny fitted the wing tags): "The bird has been there a wee while. Unfortunately Keith Brockie caught it with a broken leg the following week (ironically the opposite one to the one it was holding up in the picture). We think that Keith found it within hours of getting injured and it was in the seal colony. It was taken back to the mainland to see the vet at edinburgh zoo but had to be put down due to the severity of the injury."
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