:: Wild Places Blog ::

Not a bad start to our ringing here in Uist, we did our first ringing on the 16th August and have been catching at two sites - our garden and the garden next door. The two gardens couldn’t be more different - Bill has been in his house 30 years and the vegetation is, for [...]

I’ve changed my name to Miss Whiplash this week and with very good reason. Are you thinking figure-hugging black leather trousers and top , thigh high stiletto boots, whip in hand at the ready?
No, the reason for the name change is more due to the injuries i think i must have sustained due to Ian’s [...]

As a ringer i always get a small thrill of excitement to find an envelope from the BTO in the post - you can recognise it immediately as “news about a ringed bird”. The one today was to tell me that one of the Greenfinches i had ringed in Shropshire in January had been re-captured [...]

Had news from the BTO that one of the Greenfinches i ringed in Shropshire back in January 2009 has been found dead in Daventry, Northamptonshire, where it had unfortunately flown into a window. Not the greatest distance covered by a GREFI but always interesting to know what has happened to the birds i’ve ringed.
View Greenfinch [...]

Yes, you did read that correctly. Autumn migration starts early in Manitoba - we’ve already been seeing the odd wader heading south and non or failed passerine breeders passing through.
From now until the 30th September our daily routine will be: open the 10 forty foot nets (weather permitting) half an hour before sunrise and operate [...]

We’ve been up to Lincolnshire to spend a couple of days with our friend and fellow ringer James. This visit we went to James’s coastal site.
The day dawned breezy and, well, blooming cold! Luckily the ringing site is amongst the coastal scrub and nicely sheltered. First bird out of the net was a Firecrest. Lovely! [...]

Had a lovely weekend visit to my parents in Shropshire. As well as seeing all the family - mum, dad, daughters, brother and sister-in-law, nephews, nieces and cousin we managed to do a little ringing. I was happy to see that the house next door is still derelict and nothing has yet been planned for [...]

YES! Great News! Arrived home from Goa late last night to find that my work permit for Canada has been approved. Will be bander in charge at Delta Marsh Bird Observatory from 1st May until sometime in October (depending on whether they also want me to run the Saw-Whet Owl ringing program. A paid ringing [...]

No new birds today but i did get a fondle tick of a House Crow. If you are not a ringer you might at this moment be asking “what the heck is a fondle tick?” and thinking it sounds slightly dodgy. It simply means that you’ve had a bird in the hand that you’ve never [...]

After catching the two already ringed birds last weekend in mum and dads garden i had phoned a ringer that i knew operated in the area and gave him the ring numbers. If you read my earlier post you will remember that the ring numbers were only 11 apart and were caught in the same [...]