Holme Pierrepont, Sunday 21 April

Duncan, Tom and I made the first visit of the year to the Grange side of Holme Pierrepont on Sunday. Someone else had obviously decided it would be a nice place to spend some time and after doing so had left their makeshift tent, burnt out fires, cans, bottles and other assorted rubbish. On the ringing front the day started calm and sunny with a variety of warblers singing and a few finding the nets. The wind got up about 10.00am and the catch dropped of quickly from that point. We finished with 29 birds including 10 retraps, 13 of the birds were warblers including a Cetti's and some Sedge, Willow, Blackcap and Chiffchaff. The Reed Warblers had obviously not yet arrived in numbers as we only caught 1 and some of the Sedge Warblers we had were carrying fat so were probably just stopping of on their way north. A surprise in the net was a Snipe which made Duncan happy, particularly as it was one that Chris had missed in the winter and so needed a ring!

Kev