Army Ornithological SocietyGibraltar Ringer 10
Yet another day when you just don't know what's around the corner, prospects not being hopeful for a large catch with dawn breaking with clear skies, and Mark and Robin due to catch the plane home mid morning. A quick credit to Mark Cutts whose company, advice, ID skills, and IT know-how, and his matelot sense of humour, will be very much missed by us all. Greatest accolade we can pay must be his grinning mug as lead picture on an AOS blog!
In semi darkness and with the nets opened, we watched a couple of fly pasts by a Red-necked Nightjar and thought little further about it. A later net round and there was a nightjar in the tape lure net - but surprisingly, a European Nightjar. Clearing the last net of the round and a long way from the tape lure was our fly-past bird, the Red-necked. Big grins all round from the guys who ringed them and Mark forgot for once to mention 'bloody A ringers'. Great chance to compare the two young birds and their respective sizes and plumage, though both hissed and gape-threatened throughout.
John Hughes arrived to help with the recording leaving only myself and Carl Powell to ring while the others visited the airport. Probably just as well as catches were poor but still including Redstarts, Nightingales, Garden Warblers and Iberian Chiffchaffs. The Whitethroats are still causing us to double check for Subalpine but no reshows as yet. Tomorrow the long promised levante returns with a complete shift in the wind from west to east and hopefully an increase in numbers...maybe... Oh, the AOS has just opened a Twitter account - I must be getting too much sun.
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