Thursday 15th March: Some unexpected but welcome good fortune!

With just one bird left to track, and its traceable days numbered, and also nearing the end of the habitat mapping, it was beginning to look like we’d have to bring Roger’s flight forward substantially from the 12th April, as there’d be little possible fieldwork left for him to do! Well we needn’t have worried.

This morning, it was Japheth’s turn to decide where we should set the net for catching, and he and Roger put up two net’s on “bird 3 path”. Meanwhile Nick and I went after bird 7, but not a peep was heard from the bird’s tag. That was it then, the last of the tagged birds was off the radar. After over an hour of searching, a call came through from Roger – at last, they’d caught another wood warbler! Bird number 8 was due to be ringed by Nick, so we marched back in time to find the ringing station set up by Japheth. Nick was smiling from ear to ear as he processed “his” bird. With all measurements recorded, colour-rings added, and various samples taken, we attached the 6th radio tag of the season. With a predicted radio-tag life-span of 13 days, this bird will need to be tracked well after my 22nd March departure, and will give Roger some quality data to record once I’m gone!

Roger volunteered to take the wood warbler back to the area around the net where it had been caught, and to check the nets again. A few minutes later, and quite incredibly he returned with a second wood warbler. The London bus theory instantly sprang to mind – no wood warblers for weeks, then 2 come along at once.

This time Roger processed the bird, and chose the colours of Newcastle United FC for its colour-rings, black on the left, white on the right. Once done, I attached the tag with Nick’s help, whilst Roger and Japheth went to turn off the tapes and close the nets. Moments later they returned with a third wood warbler, and our 10th of the season. It was at this point that we really knew that the team would be very busy for the next couple of weeks (and confirmed the London bus thing too!!). An amazing morning, with 3 newly tagged wood warblers!! Another quick attempt to track bird 7, and another fail, but we’re not down-hearted with 3 birds to look forward to tracking tomorrow...