Pretty little things

After some weeks of no ringing I felt like doing some bird ringing again. On Saturday morning I joined Hans, Gerrit and Tammo for some ringing along the IJssel. I arrived a little bit later but I didn't miss anything so far. Blackcaps were around in good numbers with some 40 ringed in the early morning. So were the tits. Groups of Coal tits mixed with Blue and Great Tits came by, of which we were able to catch some. About 30 Coal Tits came by, but only two responded well enough to the tape to end up in the nets. They don't seem to respond that well to the tape then they usually do.. Anyway, another pretty surprise was a sweet Firecrest. It had been a while that I'd handled one (not if you take all the Golden-crowned Kinglets into account that I ringed last year). We ended the morning with a decent total of ~85 birds.

 Firecrest (Regulus ignicapillus), first year male

Coal Tit (Periparus ater), first year birds