We got some relief from the persistent northerly winds today, they finally turned south-west which meant a warmer breeze and hopefully an increase in migrants in the coming week?! There was still a bit of a nip in the air in the early morning, but after walking around for a short while you certainly had to shed a few layers!

The nets were opened first thing, but it was quiet in the garden. Despite this, there were a couple of Chiffchaffs and Chaffinches calling, three Great Tits also remain in the garden and two Coal Tits were caught and ringed, four were present in total. A breeding plumaged Red-throated Diver was seen from the Cristin, close to the shore on the West Coast.

Coal Tit caught at Cristin

When ringers age songbirds (passerines) they are looking for remaining juvenile feathers. This Coal Tit has three brown-fringed juvenile greater coverts (feathers at the base of the secondary feathers) that contrast slightly with the inner grey/blue adult ones. Meaning this bird hatched last year.

After the nets were furled, the assistant wardens cracked on with sorting out the dining room before heading out to count birds. The birds of the day were three Twites that flew south over the narrows in the late morning, these are scarce vagrants to Bardsey. The birds were seen and heard in flight, but only briefly, despite attempts to find them on the ground, they were not relocated. They sound rather like Linnets but with a raspy part to the call which has a slight upwards inflection at the end. 

The forgiving weather meant it was a nice day to conduct the daily bird counts. 

This is George, one of the assistant wardens on his morning census

More Chough monitoring took place later in the day and the nesting pairs are starting to build up and be identified by their colour-rings. They will be starting to incubate eggs by the middle of April, but before then it's interesting to see which birds have paired up, in case they break-up and re-pair with another bird before the season starts! The Pair that nest at Barcut are one of the 'few' in North Wales where both birds are unringed.

The Barcut pair, viewed from the top of Pen Cristin

Wheatear numbers are really starting to build up now with around eight regular birds being recorded daily, and there is breeding behaviour occurring already, including birds prospecting nest sites! Because of the loose, rocky walls that cover Bardsey, Wheatears have a great amount of nesting habitat to choose from. 

Male Wheatear on the Narrows

Other sightings today include: one Grey Heron, nine Shelducks, one Peregrine, 63 Oystercatchers, one Curlew, 12 Turnstones, 78 Herring Gulls, one Little Owl, three Chiffchaffs, one Rook and eight Canada Geese.

Ringing totals today: Coal Tit 2, Goldfinch 3, Chaffinch 1