Finger biters

Finger biters, not so surprising when you take a look at their bills. Both ringed at my CES recently.

 Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes), male

 Jay (Garrulus garrulus), 2cy female

Ringing site at dawn

Promising start on Queensday

Unlike many other people, we spent our Queensday bird ringing. How wonderful!

Together with my dad, Hans and Henri we had an excellent first CES round at my ringing siste. As always with the first time, the set up took a bit longer then expected but for the rest everything went smooth.

From this year on, nestboxes have been hung on trees at the site and I think this has caused a clear increase in Pied Flycatcher and Great Tits. 

The morning started with cloud cover and low temperatures but soon the sun came forward and it became a beautiful day, the first reasonable day for Holland so far this spring!

Cloud cover is good for ringing and this was proved soon. Every round we had quite a few birds. Below the totals:

Blackbird (Turdus merula)	2
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla)	2
Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)	1
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)	2	1
Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus)	4
Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)	1
Great Tit (Parus major)	16	2
Jay (Garrulus glandarius)	1
Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)	6
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)	2
Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla)	1
Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis)	1
Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus)	2

Total 41- 3 (recapture of one 'unknown' Dutch ringed Great Tit)

Observations during the ringing included: singing Lesser Redpoll, Yellowhammers, Marsh Tits, Coal Tits, Woodlark, Cuckoo, Redstarts, first Wood Warbler of the year and displaying Goshawk.

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), >2cy female; rounded primary coverts, rounded tail; blackish alula etc made me age this one as a >2cy, eventhough females are tricky.. (Well Pied Flycatchers in general in spring are difficult...)

  Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), >1cy male; of the browngrey 'morph'

But what about the age of this one? A very good 4 I would say! (Upper individual)

 Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), >1cy; pale looking individual

 Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus), >1cy male

Jay (Garrulus glandarius), >1cy female