Saturday 6 April 2013

A gloriously sunny day with hardly a breath of wind saw a little more in the way of birds on the island, but still very few considering that it is early April. Over 55 Redwings were seen in the early hours, mostly around Nant, and two continental Song Thrushes were seen. A Hooded Crow was present amongst a flock of 36 Carrion Crows and five Jackdaws at the North End. Six Wheatears were scattered along the coast, and two Black Redstarts were present in the afternoon at Plas and Ty Capel. Only six Chiffchaffs and 17 Goldcrests were seen in the island’s gardens and plantation, along with two Blackcaps. Singles of Greenfinch, Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Goldfinch passed through in the morning, and 30 Chaffinches remained in the gardens.

 A handful of Wheatears were seen around the coast
Wrens are making up the bulk of the dawn chorus at the moment
 Redwing (top) and continental Song Thrush (bottom)
View image on Twitter
A ringing session at Cristin in the afternoon yielded six new Goldcrests (bottom), as well as a re-trap bird which was ringed on the island in September last year. An interesting breeding-plumage Blackbird was also trapped, with an unusually red bill and eye ring (upper)
Ringed Plover

4 comments:

  1. Is the Rock Pipit with the Starling from a similar origin to the thrush?

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  2. The Rock Pipit in the same picture as the continental song thrush is one of the island's breeding birds, and so is likely not to be a migrant- the pipit in that image was actually trying to see the thrush off its territory

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  3. Pete Fearon rung a few Blackbirds like that in Liverpool and he put it down to them possibly being birds that had been feeding on the berries of Yew Trees.

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  4. Hi Steve- that's interesting, although is unlikely to be the cause here, as we don't have any Yew Trees! Pete Robinson who is staying on at the moment says that most of the Blackbirds he caught on the Scilly Isles had bills of that colour.

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