So after an early start on Saturday it was encouraging to only catch two other infected birds, and their wounds were nothing like the above birds! Lots of other Great Tits were captured and ringed, but didn't show any signs of Avian Pox!
A good day was had with 97 birds being captured - mainly Blue, Great & Coal Tit making the bulk of the catch, however several Goldcrest, Chaffinch, Treecreeper & Nuthatch were also captured. Zac colour ringed over 20 new Blue Tits, including colour ringing several that were already BTO ringed, therefore adding known aged birds to the project - something which will provide useful to Zac's study.
Back at home, during Saturday evening we placed a CCTV camera into my garden owl box. Over the last few weeks I've been noticing a pair of Tawny Owls hanging around the box, so was pretty keen to get the camera installed before any eggs were laid! However it seemed they had beaten us to that, as when I went up to the box a single Tawny Owl egg was in the nest cup! So we had to work fast to get the camera up before the female came back! She did and went straight back to the box & is now sitting on two eggs!
Sunday morning was spent mist netting in the garden, whilst comfortably watching our first Nest Record Card of the year from our television screen!! 20 birds captured in total - mainly Goldfinch, Blackbird, Robin and a smart Bullfinch. A recap Blackbird turned out to be more than 8 years old & ringed in the garden by me & Steve during my training days....
Lastly we finished off at Crompton Lodges catching 4 Coot & 3 Canada Geese.
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