This weekend Kane and I travelled up to Manchester for a weekend's ringing with Ciaran, Chris & Zac. On Saturday I left the house early to met up with Steve Christmas for a mist netting session at Walkden while the guys went to Atherton woods for an all day session.
My ringing session was fairly quiet but we did manage to catch a good number of Redpolls and a rather welcome retrap Great Spotted Woodpecker, as well a one (mandatory!) Blue Tit.
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| Taken shortly before drawing blood from poor Steve! |
I finished my session up at around luchtime and so headed over to find the guys in the woods via McDonalds for 'supplies'! The main aim of the day's ringing session in Atherton Woods was to collect data for ZSL on Avian Pox as well as to help Zac with his dissertation project. 20 Blue Tits were recruited into Zac's project and 2 birds were caught showing signs of Avian Pox. A superb variety of birds were processed including my very first and long awaited Goldcrest.
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| A cracking male Nuthatch and one of my favourite woodland birds |
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| Smile for the camera! |
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| My very first Goldcrest! |
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| Ciaran with 2 of the 3 Treecreepers |
Sunday saw us mist netting in Kane's garden and of course no weekend would be complete without a Coot session. The highlight of the garden session was catching a bright male Bullfinch.
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| All talk and no bite these guys! |
Whilst out at Crompton Lodges I attempted to catch my first Tufted Duck but all I ended up with was a purple hand to match my nail varnish! Next time perhaps...
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| New recruits at Crompton |
Big thanks goes to Steve Christmas, Michael & Mary, Kane & the gang. Another weekend done and soon it will be time for us to head back down to Slimbridge.
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| Some of the gang hard at work |
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