The aftermath........

The outcome of yesterdays horrendous weather and floods should of equalled good birds and it didn't disappoint!

Naturally I headed for Dru, via Widdrington as some wazzack had abandoned his VW Passat in the middle of the flood, blocking the road. The wind wasn't as strong as forecast, so JF decided to put the nets up - however we were thwarted..the track to the Budge screen was at welly height, so we got that one up, and the top end was OK but the rest were just too deep. Basically the pool was now in the wood. There were hods of birds about though and if we had had've had more nets up we would've done well.

Scary...where is the bridge?

Redstarts were everywhere, we caught 3 but there were counted at least 29 more, spotflys and pied flys were also everywhere, the highlights though were firstly barred warbler, a first year bird going through the bushes where we were parked and a greenish warbler, which I first picked up by the track to the hides (impassable) with about 20 willow warblers, which we lost, after a net round we heard it calling then saw it again, briefly, shortly later walloping a green caterpillar off a twig. There may well have been two greenish, as the earlier bird was a bit distant from the second??

The wood and fields were lifting birds with birds til mid-afternoon with at least 60 wheatear on the roadside and field. Considering most of the woods were inaccessible and we were ringing which slowed down birding, most of our numbers could easily be trebled. Looking at RBA tonight most places got wryneck but we didn't..hopefully the waters will subside overnight giving us access to the other net rides tomorrow.

Pied fly

Still - a fantastic day...greenish and barred were both patch ticks and a handful of year ticks - hopefully some of these birds might hang arond til tomorrow?

Key Totals

redstart 32 (3 caught and ringed)
pied flycatcher 10 (1 caught and ringed)
spotted flycatcher 10
willow warbler 31 (2 caught and ringed)
garden warbler 4
blackcap 4
barred warbler 1
wheatear 60
greenish warbler 1
whinchat 2

lastly, i went to the Chute (ta BB) to get my veg...

"canny marra yungun"

139 pied flycatcher
140 garden warbler
141 barred warbler (215)
142 greenish warbler (216)
143 whinchat