gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

After spending yesterday morning on a number of mundane tasks and the afternoon sorting out which smart phone to buy, it was good to get out early again this morning for some ringing at Durlston.

Here we go again - another Durlston dawn

I was doubtful that we would achieve much due to the brisk NW wind, but found that the goat plots were quite sheltered. We ringed 52 new birds and handled 11 species in total. Best was undoubtedly a Treecreeper, obviously not a rare bird, but one that I haven’t handled for many years.

Excluding a vagrant Short-toed Treecreeper used to involve a complex mathematical formula involving the length of the bill and hind claw, but now can be done on the fine detail of the pattern on the wing.

All the Chaffinches we trapped today were females. This is not all that surprising, the tendency for male and female Chaffinches to winter in seperate areas was noted by Linnaeus who gave it the Latin name 'coelebs' meaning 'unmarried'

In the afternoon I called in at Middlebere where I connected with the flock of 28 Spoonbills (one was trying very hard to stay invisible behind another and was only noticed when a second bill appeared) before heading for Sunnyside Farm near Ridge, where there were no birds at all on the scrape.

Spoonbills. This is the biggest flock of this species ever to be seen in Dorset

Sunnyside Farm from the viewing screen.

 

 

About the only interesting thing at Sunnyside this afternoon !