12th -13th May

At least the weathers been nice! Its been a relatively quiet few days although there has always been the odd new passerine to just about keep our legs going-mainly appearing in the Holland House mist nets or around the Observatory. The 30% island coverage on 12th turned up a female Ring Ouzel, 3 Pied Flycatchers, a mixture of Warblers including 2 new Whitethroats, a Brambling, 6 Common and 2 Lesser Redpolls-all split between the two locations mentioned above. The best to be had away from these were 8 Black-tailed Godwits at Ancum and a Common Sandpiper at Gretchen. On 13th just 15% of the island was covered (something we might live to regret with news of our neighbours latest scoop filtering through!), with the harrowing/seeding of the sacrificial bird crop on the Observatory croft taking priority for most the day. There wasn't a lot seen with a Collared Dove, a similar selection of Warblers to the previous day and singles of Common,  Lesser and something in-between Redpolls trapped and ringed.

A different view of a Redpoll-this ones a Mealy. Its been a fantastic spring for both Mealy and the usually scarce Lesser Redpolls on the island this year. At least 14 of the latter have been recorded so far-all of them trapped/ringed (including a Belgian control) and identified when in the hand. Redpolls are renowned for being a bit of a nightmare but they've all been relatively distinctive and straightforward birds-that is until today, when we caught an ambiguous individual with plumage features indicative of Mealy but all the biometrics pointing to Lesser!