Fygyn Common. Another new species. First Redwing.

I can't keep away from my new site. I am enjoying it so much. You never know what you are going to catch and this is why it can be so exciting. This morning I was a little late leaving home. At 07.30 am the sun was starting to rise because there was no cloud coverage, yesterday at 07.30am it was still dark. The forecast also predicted a sunny morning from about 10.00am, and the wind certainly was not 7mph, more like 11mph or 12mph so it was not a good start.
Wendy James from the Teifi Ringing Group joined me today and we had four nets up by 08.10am. On previous occasions I have only erected two because it would be difficult to manage the site with more nets than this as a lone ringer. In nets 1 and 2 we put on Redwing sound, in 3 we had Reed Bunting and 4 Goldcrest.

First net round produced 2 out of the 3 Redwing. It is a long time since I have caught and ringed one of these. Both birds were Juveniles the 3rd later in the morning being an adult. The juveniles clearly showed the buffish coloured triangular tooth marks on the tips of the Tertials and Greater Coverts. In the picture above you can see a couple of buffish tips on the Coverts.

This Redwing is the adult. No tips to the Tertials and GC's. It had a good adult tail. 1st Tail Feather being wider and more rounded than Juveniles.

Another Reed Bunting, an adult male. They seem to be feeding on the seeds of the grasses in the common. No doubt they will hang around until the winter months when seed may be scarce and they are forced to forage elsewhere.

The white collar, black coming through on the head and the drooped moustache will develop between now and next year. The buffed coloured feathers in the head will gradually wear away over the winter months exposing the black feathers ready for the breeding season in the Spring

The two Willow Tits from today make a total of three birds since I started on the Common. This is good by any standard for the area. It is a bird that tends to be localised. There has been no sighting reported in 2013 in the latest issue of Carmarthen Birds produced by the Carmarthen Bird Club for this area.

Species	New	Re-traps	Totals
Blue Tit	7		7
Willow Tit	2		2
Redwing	3		3
Dunnock	1		1
Reed Bunting	1		1
Chaffinch	1		1
Goldcrest	2		2
Great Tit	3		3
Totals	20		20

Thanks to Wendy for the help today and her positive comments about the site.