The Sewage works at Wigston can be very productive but the weather has to be near perfect to mist net in the open i.e calm and overcast. This afternoon started well but the wind picked up and no Wagtails or Pipits were caught. This is despite huge numbers on site but we have found them almost impossible to catch once even the slightest breeze picks up. Some consolation appeared in the shape of two Great Spotted Woodpeckers. My wife Jane has just set up a feeding station and the 'peckers have found the peanut feeders within days. Both birds were adult (Female on the left (no red on head) and Male on the right (red band accross nape)... below). I have included a third, old image, to show how we age Great Spots. The brown old juvenile primary coverts contrast with the jet black adult type indicating a first year.
TOTALS
Group member Dave Bradley recoreded a colour ringed Waxwing off Hinckley Road in Leicester earlier this week The combination was White over Orange over Green on the left leg. It was ringed by the Grampian Ringing Group on 08/11/2004 at Inverurie, 20km west of Aberdeen. This will now be entered in to the BTO database as a 'control' i.e a bird which has been ringed elsewhere and been retrapped or resighted in a distant recording area. The following link is to an article on the incredible influx of Waxwings in to the UK and Ireland which began last autumn. The reference to the article and images below are with kind permission of Merseyside Ringing Group. http://www.merseysiderg.org.uk/ click on bird in the hand and then Waxwing.
The roost at Charnwood Lodge has faded away (which happens most years about this time). An early morning session at Whetstone produced 8 Blackbird 1 Redwing and a Waxwing (present but not ringed).
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