Wales, Sunday 16 June

Gary, Mick P, Duncan and I made the trip to Wales on Sunday to ring the Pied Flycatcher chicks. I was not sure what we would find because of the late spring. Mick P had got some information from Tony Cross who rings locally and based on that I made the decision to go about a week later than usual.

Thankfully the timing was just about right with just a couple of fledged nests and about 4 not hatched or not big enough to ring. There were many boxes not occupied (not even by tits!) but we ended with 150 Pied Flycatchers comprising 138 pulli, 4 new adults and 4 adults with rings (3 of them controls). The only other species we ringed was a brood of 6 Redstart, although there were 2 more Redstart nests still incubating. We heard a couple of brief bursts of song from a solitary Wood Warbler but we could not locate it later on and disappointingly for the second year running there were no Buzzards nesting.

Kev

 All photos by Gary Goddard