Manor Farm Country Park - 9th April

Things have been a little hectic of late which has meant me not having the time to update my blog, but with a couple of hours to spare today, I thought it would be the ideal time to post last weekends activities.

Bird ringing was limited to Saturday and a measly total of only 20 birds were captured, of which six were recaptures. After the previous weekends migrants, there was an immediate return to resident species, but despite this there were some cracking birds captured. The pick of them included a pair of adult chaffinch's and a stunning male greenfinch.

Adult male chaffinch Manor Farm Country Park 9th April ©T.D.Codlin

I aged both the chaffinch's by the shape and pattern of the tail feathers, in fact the tail of the male exhibited all of the features that would expected on an adult bird.

Tail of male chaffinch showing well defined pattern and obtuse tip of 5th tail
feather and black centre to central tail feathers ©T.D.Codlin

I also managed to catch a few more house sparrows and add to my totals for my RAS project. Although the retrap numbers were low, only two birds recaptured, I was able to fit another six colour rings.

Male house sparrow wearing his lovely new colour ring ©T.D.Codlin

With the warm sunny days that we have been having recently there has been a dramatic increase in insect activity, some species having emerged from hibernation, such as small tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock and comma butterflies...

Comma butterfly recently emerged from its winter hibernation ©T.D.Codlin 

...whereas many moth species, such as frosted green and streamer, have a flight season of April - May and have emerged after spending the winter months overwintering as a pupa.

Frosted green moth 9th April 2011  ©T.D.Codlin

Streamer moth 9th April 2011  ©T.D.Codlin

The other species captured over the weekend were hebrew character, common quaker, small quaker, blosom underwing and lunar marbled brown.