3rd March

A lovely day throughout with plenty of sunshine and light winds so I spent all day with the nets at Kew and Church Field; ringing was decent (for the start of March anyway!), with 22 new birds trapped, highlighted by catching two Moorhens at first light with one in the house trap and one in the Heligoland trap – huge size difference between the two with the male being 120g heavier than the female, they were both 1st winter birds and its tempting to think they were migrants, due to head back to Scandinavia soon.   

Other birds caught comprised 7 Chaffinches (including a couple of very big, Scandinavian, adult males with wings of 95), 2 Greenfinches, a Goldfinch, a Robin, a Dunnock, 3 Song Thrush and 5 Great Tits (now’s the time when they start to move around).   Birds of note seen through the day also included a Firecrest briefly at the mouth of the Heligoland trap (the earliest ever spring migrant at Spurn by four days!), a Short-eared Owl in the afternoon, some good northward passage of Pink-footed Geese – I saw around 400 but the day’s total comprised 2,605, two Rook south, two Redwing, a Reed Bunting and 3 Linnets.

Moorhens

Tree Sparrow