Merlin's magic strikes again, 451 birds

Over the past few days we have been watching this top predator a Merlin chasing around and catching birds on the sea shore. This bird is an adult female and going down to the ringing site it was perched on this rock unperturbed by our presence whilst taking photographs.

It is proving more difficult to ascertain what is going to happen with the weather. This morning was supposed to be dull and overcast with torrential rain by 10.30am. In actual fact it was sunny and warm with clouds and a slight breeze to being overcast, warm with a freshening breeze.

This picture of Nesseby bay in front of the church was taken at 04.51am local time. By 6.00am we had caught and processed about 200 birds. It reminded me of our last trip in 2014 when birds were everywhere in the Marsh and were dropping into the nets as they were being put up. In fact the weather conditions were near perfect and we new by 6.00am it was going to be a bumper day.

In all we caught 451 birds over 17 species and packed up at 11.30am on the first visit and 6-00pm on the second visit.

A juvenile Sedge Warbler from the Marsh is the fifth so far this trip. This far north is about the limit of their breeding areas.

 I know I posted a few days ago a similar picture of a Bluethroat, however this has the most vibrant coloured throat markings of the male I have ever seen with the red centre spot as well, so I thought I would share it.

Again a new bird for the trip, it is an adult male in its autumn plumage. Both Spring and Autumn birds have a tail with black and white plumage. Spring male birds have an Ash-grey upper-parts with a white supsercilium, black eye mask and a yellowish buff colour on the throat and breast.

The adult male in the Autumn is identified with black wings with narrow pale fringes, black lores and some black on the ear coverts. This bird was aged as an adult male.

On our way home for the second time today the Merlin was still around and we watched her catch a Meadow Pipit and take it to a rock where she plucked it before eating the meat.

These two photographs were taken around 10ft away from the bird. It is amazing how close you can get when in a car. We stopped adjacent to it and then got out of the car on the blind side and the Merlin was none the wiser

This picture today was taken by Petra on the extreme right, next to her husband Frank, Lee and Bernadette are together on the left.  The ringing team Paul, Scott, Dave, me and Colin. Our visitors have been coming to see us for several years now and we all look forward to seeing them and their generosity for Coffee and biscuits each morning they are in Nesseby.

We finished ringing this morning at 11.30am. We went home for something to eat and a sleep. At about 15.30 we decided to see if could catch a few more birds and increased the days total to 451 as can be seen below.

Species	Number Caught
Reed Bunting	49
Bluethroat	42
Meadow Pipit	89
Willow Warbler	79
Redpoll	147
Brambling	9
Sedge Warbler	1
Fieldfare	8
Great tit	6
Redwing	10
Greenfinch	5
Redstart	1
Arctic Redpoll	1
Lapland Bunting	0
House Sparrow	0
Pied Flycatcher	1
White Wagtail	1
Dunlin	0
Wheatear	1
Dunnock	1
Total	451