Garden Tick

I knew it was going to be 'one of those days' when I got to my coast ringing site this morning. I had planned to get up early but I could drag myself out of bed, so it was about 6:30 when I left home. Got to site put my wellies on, opened the boot and I had left the net poles at home...arse!!! There was not point going back to get them so I decided to do the garden instead.

This didn't start well as all the top poles pulled out leaving nets on the floor and me swearing!! It has been pretty quiet recently so I wasn't expecting much. Now that the flowerbeds are growing up, some of the birds are now hiding in them when I check the nets so I have started to tap the plants with a cane to push them out. First bird to fly out was a dunnock but as I went to get it out of the net I realised that it was a juv whitethroat, a new bird for the garden! There are loads of juv blackbirds about at the moment and 5 managed to blunder into the nets along with 2 coat tits (1 re-trap) and a male goldcrest. 6 crossbills over east was a garden yeartick taking the total to 51.
Afternoon trapping was slightly curtailed by yet more heavy thunderstorms and after a while I get fed up with open, close, open, close and shut for the day.

The sun is shining now...bloody typical!

Juv coal tit

Juv whitethroat, 1st record for the garden

male goldcresy