Ringing has been pretty amazing with over 150 birds rung over the last 2 weekends. Mostly tits but there has been a few goodies including this lesser whitethroat, 3 whitethroat, 4 treecreeper and a juv jay. A green sand and greeshank were on the new lake this Saturday and a singing turtle dove the week before.

Juv green woodpecker - a ringing tick for me. There has been at least 3 birds in the wood recently so it was nice to finally catch one.

Juv chiffchaff in the garden. A nice surprise considering how slow it has been in the garden this month with the windy conditions. Only 22 new of which 12 were ringed on Sunday.

This bird was singing nearby so I put on a tape. Within 5 mins I saw movement near the nets and found this cracker in the bottom shelf!

Cimbex connatus or alder sawfly - the beast (nearly 1 inch long) was brought into the visitor centre last week. All the sawfly species are under-recorded although the larval forms were found on the reserve last year. Although they are now spreading, they went unrecorded in the UK for 90 years until 1997. Since then there has been a increase in records throughout southern Britain.