Beauty concealed in feathers

 Hidden colours:

In the wing of a Magpie.

Overall pic of the Magpie.

I caught this Magpie in my garden this morning. This was the second Magpie to be ringed in my garden. The first one I ringed was a juvenile and so was this one. It could be aged easily as a 1cy looking at the amount of white on the two outermost primaries P1 and P2 (or P10 and P9 the other way around.)

The white on the P1 and P2 doesn't come close to reaching the tip of the P, with an adult bird the two primaries would have a much larger amount of white.

Tammo with the Magpie.

I was also able to catch and ring some other birds. Check the totals below:

Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 1 - 1

Blackbird (Merel) 1 -

Chaffinch (Vink) 1 -

Great Tit (Koolmees) - 2

Greenfinch (Groenling) 1 -

House Sparrow (Huismus) 6 -

Magpie (Ekster) 1 -

The Greenfinches have outsmarted me already.. Today was the first time again that I had my net up with Greenfinches around, and they already knew exactly the whereabouts of my nets, eventhough all of them were unringed! This morning I had up to five birds feeding next to the net..

I did catch this adult male though:

 Greenfinch, adult male

Wing of the Greenfinch