By Thomas Weston
Starling with food in the Village. Thomas Weston
Today started with me awaking just before 5am. I got up and ready and headed on down to Millcombe to open some nets and start some ringing. The first couple of birds seen from the house to the ringing site included one of our Channel Wagtail pair and a Siskin along with the local House Sparrows and Starlings. The weather was sunny and extremely calm, not a breeze or a gust at all and it was looking like another glorious day on the island.
Golden Oriole ringed Millcombe by Thomas Weston
Opening the lower Millcombe nets was the plan as I was on my own. The session was extremely slow to begin. A single new Chiffchaff made up the 1 bird per hour (05:30-06:30), followed by a new(!) female Blackbird keeping up the 1 bird per hour (06:30-07:30). There were flocks of passing Auks, 100+ Manx Shearwaters and a 6 Gannets too. Our male Golden Oriole was singing in the trees but remained stubbornly elusive as they do. There was passing fog too, but nothing on the island yet! This all changed when Maddie came down to the site. We opened a net near the Casbar and went back down to the bottom to extract any birds. Success came in the form of 2 new Chiffchaffs showing breeding evidence, almost certainly a pair, and a retrap Linnet. The fog started to close in now and it was feeling rather eerie and cool. Greg made an arrival, and we checked again. Nothing on this round but we were not going to call it quit yet, two juvenile Blackbirds were a welcome sign of fledged juveniles, and we could see parents of a lot of the locals collecting food for their young too.
The next net round was very special and memorable, we approached the Casbar net, and we had caught a retrap Blackbird from two years ago, a new Goldfinch and the Golden Oriole! A very big surprise given that none of us had seen it this morning, just heard it. There were a pair of retrap Linnets in the lower Millcombe nets, and we proceeded to process all birds bar the Oriole in the Valley. Only a couple of minutes later we went to ring the bird at the top of the valley so those who were around could see. A small gathering formed, and the Golden Oriole was ringed. A smart 2nd calendar year type male and on release he flew back in Millcombe where he was seen and heard again up to the time of our departure, 10am. A successful, and good morning, especially for all those retraps we caught today!
Making my way into the Village I undertook some washing of Bird Obs bags, met with a new researcher on the island Jayden who is looking into the temperatures of the cliffs where our colony/cliff nesting species are currently holding territory, and helped Lucile with a brood of House Sparrows that needed some assistance. There was one fledged Starling today, though crashing into the Vestry was never the best idea and so we popped it in the closest nest of similar size young, an adopted family.
An evening of chill and relaxing is the plan tonight.