My First Solo Ringing Session

A text at 4am this morning confirmed what I had been expecting – it was raining in Nottingham and ringing at Granby was cancelled. A quick look out of the window established that it was raining here in Chesterfield too, so I switched off the alarm and went back to sleep. At 7am, it was still raining and looked set fair for the day. Happily, I was wrong and by 8.30am the rain was gone, the threat of more rain was receding and I decided to attempt my first solo ringing session in my garden.

I could see and hear lots of birds around and about as I carefully put up the nets. We had left the base sections of the poles and the guys in place after last weekend’s session which made it very easy to put the nets up – once I had remembered which side the Jap net went on and which side the NRSF went on! As I was tying the guy for the third net, I saw something jump into the 10’ net; my first bird of the morning before I had even finished putting the nets up. As I set the nets another two birds failed to see them and I was smiling. By the time I made it back inside, I had six full bird bags (and I hadn’t even got the rings out yet!).

The first birds I processed were a pair of long-tailed tits, one of which was one of the two birds I ringed last week – my first re-trap! Surprisingly, its mate was un-ringed which means I have at least three individuals visiting my garden, rather than the single pair that I thought I had. The next bird processed was the first bird in the nets and a new species for the garden; a first year robin complete with OGCs and a fault bar in the tail.

First garden robin

Two house sparrows came next, followed by another new species for the garden, a blue tit. My third new species for the garden was a chaffinch, or rather two chaffinches, one adult female and one first year male (not caught together). Four more house sparrows joined the party and the second of last weekend’s long-tailed tits also came back to say hello.

First garden blue tit

By mid-morning, it was brightening up fast and a breeze was starting to make itself acquainted with the nets, particularly the NRSF. Just as I was contemplated taking them down, one half of my regular collared dove visitors came to sit on the fence. It clearly wanted to drop down onto the seed on the path but kept seeing the net and veering away at the last minute. I stood in my kitchen, watching it with baited breath for a few minutes until it finally decided it could take the nets; it couldn’t and luckily for me, this week it didn’t bounce.

As this was a new species for me, I had to spend a little time familiarising myself with the ageing and sexing criteria before deciding that it was a 4M (I think). It had a bright ruby red eye, a distinctive black collar, no obvious fringing on the feathers and pretty bright legs. Its general appearance was more pinkish than olive hence my thinking it was a male. Feel free to leave me a comment if you disagree – I would welcome any tips on this beautiful species.

 

Pinkish head, black collar with slight white
fringing, ruby red eye - adult bird?

Quite bright leg colour.

Beautiful collared dove posing for a picture
before flying off.

I took the nets down after processing the collared dove as the wind was getting too strong and was in danger of bending the poles! Final tally for the day was fourteen (new/re-trap): long-tailed tit 1/2, robin 1/0, house sparrow 6/0, blue tit 1/0, chaffinch 2/0, collared dove 1/0.

All in all, a very successful and enjoyable first solo ringing session!

Ruth