Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside

For a chance to ring some impressive birds we had a trip over to Long Nab (just north of Scarborough) yesterday evening where we were joined by local birders to have a go at netting Storm Petrels. While Storm Petrels are abundant on say the west coast of Scotland it’s a much harder proposition to net them on Yorkshire’s coastline. At just gone midnight and after a lot of patience luck was on our side. In the space of about half an hour we caught 2 Storm Petrels and a Leach’s Petrel – A bird rarely ringed in Yorkshire.

Storm Petrel – Ringed on 18 July 2010

Leach’s Petrel – Ringed on 18 July 2010

Sand Martins Are Go

I’ve been a bit slack with my blogging lately but that’s largely down to the amount of ringing our groups done over the past few weeks. Sand Martin season is well underway and we’ve already surpassed our hope of 1000 birds and have now ringed 1186 Sand Martins in total. Our large roost of Sand Martins hasn’t gone unnoticed and we now have two Hobbies regularly using the site as a fly through for an evenings snack!

Sand Martins perched on our net - Dave Bowes

Sand Martin totals for the last few weeks have been – 24/6 15, 25/6 30, 28/06 74, 30/6 82, 1/7 81, 2/7 190, 8/7 374, 9/7 116, 12/7 224.

In addition, we also ringed – Swallow 7, Reed Warbler 11, Sedge Warbler 7, Pied Wagtail 6, Reed Bunting 3, Dunnock 1.