The weather for this morning did not look promising for a catch with conflicting forecasts on wind speeds. John and I decided to give it a shot anyway and were joined by Walter. We arrived at 0415 and got several nets up in the Whitburn Point nature reserve. It was fairly steady with a few birds until a large flock of starlings descended on the reserve. The starlings made a bee line to the two larger mesh nets which made it incredibly difficult to extract them. We continued to catch a few reed buntings, house sparrows and whitethroats. The first juveniles of the year turned up into the nets, both of which were greenfinch. The pair of grey partridge were observed just north of the reserve. The ringed pair of yellowhammer were still present with the male singing for most of the morning. Linnets were very quiet, presumably the females are incubating. I check a bush that I had previously seen Linnets carrying nest material into, the nest was easily found but only contained two eggs. I would expect it to have more eggs by now but we will monitor it to see if she has abandoned the nest. Six wheatears were observed along the firing range.
Ringed: starling 33, house sparrow 6, whitethroat 3, blackbird 2, greenfinch 2, reed bunting 2 (1 retrap), singles of swallow, willow warbler and chiffchaff.
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