It’s been another very good month in the valley, a total of 256 birds have been ringed, including 103 passerines & 153 non-passerines (146 waterfowl, 5 waders & 2 raptors/owls). Outside of the valley at our neighbouring NNR’s another 51 birds were ringed (Forge Valley 47, Duncombe Park 4).
| March | Year | ||
| WATERFOWL | |||
| Mute Swan | 2 | 2 | |
| Greylag Goose | 3 | 3 | |
| Brent Goose | 0 | 1 | |
| Shelduck | 19 | 77 | |
| Wigeon | 3 | 110 | |
| Teal | 25 | 279 | |
| Mallard | 90 | 211 | |
| Pintail | 0 | 5 | |
| Moorhen | 4 | 8 | |
| Coot | 0 | 4 | |
| Little Grebe | 0 | 1 | |
| WADERS | |||
| Snipe | 3 | 10 | |
| Ruff | 1 | 1 | |
| Redshank | 1 | 1 | |
| RAPTORS/OWLS | |||
| Red Kite | 1 | 1 | |
| Tawny Owl | 1 | 1 | |
We finally managed a wader catch last week (Tuesday 28th), considering the large numbers of birds about it was slightly disappointing to catch only a handful, however they were good ones! Jean got up close & personal with a Ruff much to her delight! A fantastic bird to catch considering less than 10 Ruff are ringed in Britain each year. The Ruff was colour ringed, along with 2 Common Snipe & a Redshank.
A sleepy Ruff!
The catch also included 3 Teal, making it 7 birds for the night, out of 720 foot of net...!! As we walked over the fields plenty of Curlew were singing & over 100 Snipe got up - great to know they are there it’s just a shame we didn’t catch more! Whilst we were waiting in the hide for darkness to fall (measured using the Jackson scale!) we also had the pleasure of listening to Snipe drumming!
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