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Saturday 27 May 2017

Attenborough Sand Martin Colony, Thursday 25 May

The first broods of Sand Martins have left their nests at Attenborough so I decided to make the first attempt at catching adults with the new mono-filament net. Phil, Pete S and I set the new and very fragile net in perfectly calm conditions and retired into the hide. We knew we would only be likely catch any number of birds at face’s B and C as face A had been affected by a leaking roof over the winter and there was only one active nest in it. We did have perfectly still conditions but the sun was out fully from the start so to end with a catch of 54 Sand Martins (including 24 recaptures), which is nearly as many as we had in 3 visits last year, suggests the new net is making a difference. Even better, 45 of them were adults including returning adults and pulli from 2016, 1 pullus from 2015 and a bird originally ringed at Redhill Marina in 2014 that was also caught at Attenborough in 2016. The French connection with the colony continued this year with the capture of another French ringed bird. The 9 retrap juveniles were all birds recently fledged from this colony.

Kev

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