Because of the rain on Wednesday, we had to move CES 12 to this Friday - the penultimate day on which we could carry it out. It is pleasing that we have been able to do a full twelve session CES for the third year running. Fortunately, the move to Friday did not prevent Andrew Bray and David Williams from joining me to help with the session. We had a slightly better catch than for the same session last year, with 51 birds, compared to 46 in 2016. The highlights of the day were: the team's first retrap of a Reed Warbler sporting a Lisbon, Portuguese ring and our only Sedge Warbler of the year.
The list for the day was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit (1); Great Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit (1); Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1(2); Robin 2(1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 2; Reed Warbler (1); Sedge Warbler 1; Blackcap 21(3); Chiffchaff 5(2); Bullfinch 1(1). Totals: 38 birds ringed from 11 species, 13 birds retrapped from nine species, making 51 birds processed from 14 species.
As David and I were leaving the site, a superb male Redstart flew across the track in front of us. This is becoming a habit - and high time I started catching some. ST/AB/DW