This morning, I had a visit to Wat Tyler Country Park in Pitsea, just a few miles from where I live.
The purpose of my visit was to attend a bird ringing session undertaken by the South Essex Ringing Group facilitated by the Essex Birdwatching Society, of which I have been a long-standing member of for many years.
Many thanks to David Wilkinson from the former and Matt Turner from the latter for an amazing morning.
This was my first ever bird ringing session and it was very enjoyable watching and listening to the team of qualified and trainee ringers as well as seeing so many familiar birds so close.
My personal highlights were the 2 Willow Warblers (a species becoming increasingly scarce in Essex although I did see a singing male on both my St. Nicholas Church and Noak Bridge Nature Reserve local patch sites for several days in mid-April 2024) and the single Lesser Whitethroat (a not uncommon species although relatively difficult to see due to its skulking habits but again a bird that I recorded on both my local patch sites this spring as expected).
Our time observing the ringing session started at around 8:15 a.m. and concluded just before 11 a.m. but the ringers had been recovering birds from their mist nests and processing their biometrics for several hours prior to this.
In total, 111 birds were processed during the morning session. See here for the species list and counts ....
https://x.com/SouthEssexRG/status/1820082569896988909
Plus here for a post by the Essex Birdwatching Society ....
https://x.com/EBwSTweets/status/1820200388496076857
The small number of people privileged to attend the session were able to take photos of some of the birds after they had been processed and prior to release.
Photo: Willow Warbler
Photo: Lesser Whitethroat
Photo: Sedge Warbler
Photo: Sedge Warbler
Photo: Reed Warbler
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