Pulli weekend

It's that time of year when we're pretty occupied ringing pulli and this weekend was no exception. Friday saw us ringing the last few nestbox tits, including these Blue Tits (two of the five ringed) from the camera box on the side of my Lizard house. They're actually quite late, as most of the birds being monitored by University of Exeter students have already fledged or are close to.

I was also able to join Dale Jackson to ring one of the numerous broods of Peregrines he monitors and rings on behalf of the ringing group. They've not had the best year so far, with only 17 birds ringed (and colour-ringed) so far, compared to 25 in a 'normal' year - if that exists these days!

It's been a long time since I've jumared (you'll get the idea here),
so getting back up from this nest was hard work!

We were also able to revisit a few local Barn Owl sites that we either hadn't got round to yet, or had eggs/small chicks at the previous visit. We ringed a few broods of four (with a couple of smaller chicks going unringed), including this very smart-looking bird near St Keverne. But not all were so far advanced, with one bird near Gweek still sat on six eggs...

At least three of our sites still have birds on eggs,
which may well be replacement broods after failures

While we were in the area, we were also able to drop in and ring a brood of Song Thrushes in one of Greg's nestbox woods. The brood of four were a good size for ringing and were obvously hungry...

What's for tea!

With some of our urban gulls growing up wuick we'll no doubt be visiting a few Falmouth rooftops soon and then back over to Mullion Island for some Great Black-backed Gulls!