Mainly around the garden

Most of this weeks birding has been spent ringing pullus - apart from a trip to Hilbre on a glorious evening midweek that rapidly turned to a dismal wet day overnight! The evening was beautifully clear and Blackpool Tower could be seen with the naked eye. That's a good 40 mile visibility.

With wet weather most of the weekend the few breaks in the rain allowed me to catch up on checking my nest boxes and ring a few Blue Tit & Great Tit Chicks. Blue Tits are doing well with broods of 8-10 and one of 13 being ringed. Great Tits seem to be having much smaller broods - 5-6.

13 Blue Tits crammed like sardines in one box!

A Little Owl box I made last year has been taken over by Jackdaws and there were chicks ready for ringing and one runt that was to small.

An ugly little beast but I'm sure its parents love it.

I also caught up with John to ring some Swallow pullus at his farm site. One brood were ringed and two other broods were to small. Unfortunately nest numbers are falling on the site and where there were 6-7 nests a few years ago there are only 3 occupied nests this year.