The forecast cold weather didn't really materialise, but we were out anyway and with a few birds in the treetops at Carnon Downs sewage works (at least 15 Chiffchaff and two Siberian Chiffchaff) we decided to chance our arm. First bird caught was an unexpected adult Magpie; a new bird for Terry.
Second net round was even better, with the same net producing another adult Magpie and a Grey Wagtail; ANOTHER new bird for a now very chuffed Terry. Amazing what a random 40' net can produce! Interestingly, this second Magpie had a very old retained secondary, looking to be from a good couple of years ago.
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| Happy faces extracting Magpie and Grey Wagtail |
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| Retained secondary, but from how many years ago? |
It was a bit quiet first thing, but as the flies got moving things picked up. We ended up with 40 birds, including 10 Chiffchaffs, two Firecrest (always nice), Grey and Pied Wagtail and a very smart Siberian Chiffchaff. Although the photo doesn't really show it, this was one of the rather grey Bonelli's Warbler lookalikes, which are actually rather uncommon down here. Characteristically for these birds it showed the very long, broad supercilium.
Compare this bird with these other two Sibe Chiffs caught in the last couple of weeks. The bird on the left (at Gwithian) shows more green and yellow tones with an obvious, but not overly long, supercilium with a yellow hue in front of the eye, whilst the cold bird on the right (at Ponsanooth) shows no green tones and has a very much reduced supercilium in both width and length.
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