Army Ornithological SocietyGibraltar Ringer 13
The story ended last night with us all just a little miffed that the water was not back on and we had been working hard on the hill all day. As duty dishwasher I was particularly unimpressed. The quote of the day (from a RAFOS member) was "No wife of mine goes outside in the pitch dark to collect water from the bowser...Here love, take my head torch!"
Our recorder was absent birdwatching today so the team is down to 3. Not good as we are expecting the high numbers of birds from yesterday to be repeated today. And so it was with all of us laden with bird bags after the first round including two Red-necked Nightjar (pictured below) and a Eurasian Nightjar. Julia Springett was volunteered to go around again as Carl Powell and I started processing the birds (we believe in equality here). Having ringed all birds with nothing particularly out of the ordinary, it was off again to clear the nets. A very small dark bird excited interest and proved to be our first Dartford Warbler! Very much a 'Spanish bird' we hardly expected to see one on migration. It was poorly prepared for its flight across the Straits and had the minimum of fat aboard. Carl then extracted an Orphean Warbler from the nets. Such a very large warbler, the juvenile, as this was, is a dull bird and not as distinctively marked as some guides would have it. On virtually the last round of the day, we went from dull to flamboyant and took the first Hoopoe out of the nets. This one was an adult female, and I have to say that this bird is more impressive flying away than in the hand where it is difficulty to appreciate the full plumage.
Last point it that when we released the Red-necked Nightjar, it flew up the track on which we were ringing. Unknown to us, it then landed on the track and we walked past it repeatedly throughout the day, its camouflage plumage working perfectly. It took a call of nature for the bird to decide that this was really going too far and it flew a few feet into thicker vegetation where it alighted on a rock to resume its daylight slumbers.
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