Pages

Sunday 4 September 2016

Cornwall - France - Cornwall

First up the nest recording season has just finished with all Fulmar young having left the coastal patch now with only 2 flying birds on the site as they spend late summer and Autumn out in the mid ocean

The weekend started with a ring reading trip to the Hayle estuary on Saturday morning but with heavy rain looming, all the gulls spread out distantly, disaster was written all over it so, after 45 minutes it was back home.

Good decision actually as not long after the rain did come in and stayed in. About 3pm I tried half an hour in the hide at Stithians in utterly miserable conditions. Only 23 gulls were present and against the odds 2 of them were ringed. First sighting for blue W:020 since being ringed 3 yrs beforehand, W:064 having returned to Cornwall after being reported in France 8 months earlier.

Sunday afternoon on the Hayle estuary produced two more ringed Herring Gull's blue W:181 and blue W:192. Details sent off to the local ringer hopefully to be posted tomorrow.

The BTO Garden Birdwatch survey for the week produced the highest ever count of Common Carder bee and the highest House Sparrow count since Week 01 in 2013, however for the Sparrows, that was beaten again this morning on the first day of a new survey week. The Sparrows came in late afternoon yesterday during a break in what had been miserable weather all day. Making the most of the more settled early morning today I had a minimum of 35 in the feeding area inc 10 on my fat ball holder although when they all flew 52 were gathered on the telephone lines


I've also had a nocturnal visitor eating nuts, bread and bird seed sometime between midnight ish and 3 am. I know this because I have left for work at 3am before and the food has been eaten. Unfortunately my camera trap doesn't seem to want to work so tomorrow if there's no rain forecast I'm going to put down a load of builders yellow sand and try to get some prints. Fox was suspected until the large amount of nuts that was eaten last night.

No comments:

Post a Comment