Búho real

For almost a week, the Siskins were gone from our garden, but as the cold stayed (and we got some snow) the Siskins came back. On Friday several Siskins were visiting our garden again. In the early morning yesterday I opened my net in the hope of catching some more.

Due to the fact that I didn't have my laptop at home the last two weekends I failed to do an update on the Siskins. On the Sunday the 17th of March I caught the amazing number of 37 Siskins in our garden! 34 were new, 3 were retraps from early March. I didn't know I could catch so many in our relatively small garden, with a single 6m net.

So yesterday, Saturday the 30th of March, I tried again. And I was not dissappointed! I ringed 21 new Siskins, and recaptured 2. One recapture wasn't mine...! It was ringed by my trainer Hans, the day before (Fr 29-03) in his garden. His garden is only 900m away from ours, but still, a great recapture!

Catching (can you count all 8 hanging in the net?)

 Ringing

 Weighing

Then after some ringing we made a short visit to the Middle-spotted Woodpeckers near Hoog Soeren again. We had three males, showing well for a short period of time. Afterwards we visited my grandparents in Ruurlo, seeing quite a few Siskins and a Brambling in their backgarden.

And after a nice chat with my grandparents we went to Winterswijk to check out the breeding Eagle Owls in the quarry overthere. We were rewarded with lots of activity!

As soon as it got quiet the mother started feeding the two chicks (approx 8-10 days old). I'd never seen it before so it was great to see. As it got a bit darker, dad started calling in the nearby forest, making the experience complete! Wow!

Look at those eyes! Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo), phonescoped