At around 07:00 we caught another Tree Pipit (Skovpiber) - the third for the year - and a bird that we'd never even seen before. Back at the banding shed Lucy identified it as a Whinchat, a bird not often caught at GFU and a first for this year.
We continued to catch a good number of birds each net round throughout the morning. We were just finishing up a round at 09:30 when we heard the rustle of wings in the high net near to the house. We ran around the corner to find a Sparrowhawk (Spurvehøg) in the net! We've had 2 or 3 in the nets in the past month since we've been here but this was the first one that we managed to grab before it could get out (it also grabbed me! - Joe).
Wanting to make sure we'd identified it correctly we took some field guides and sat down at one of the benches in front of the house. As we were sitting there with the Sparrowhawk, another flew into the bottom panel of the net right next to us! Both birds were 2k females and were the first two ringed this year. While it's common to catch this species at GFU in autumn, they're rarely caught in spring and we weren't expecting to catch one - never-mind two!
After the excitement we continued netting through the day, the total new birds ringed got up to 95 (our best yet) but despite having the nets up until nearly 17:00 we just couldn't make it to 100, still an outstanding day.
Joe & Lucy
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| First Whinchat for the year - Lucy Dadour |
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| Not one but two Sparrowhawks! - Hans Lind |
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| Sparrowhawk - Joe Krawiec |
1 kommentar:
wow - awesome birds!!!
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