WT tick!

Nope, not some White Throated waif but a far more satisfying personal Lakes and ringing tick during CES this morning: Willow Tit! Well worth the 4am get-up; 129 OTL. Not forgetting, of course, a valuable record and important data on a scarce and declining species.

STOP PRESS: Not only has our satellite-tagged Nunnery Lakes Cuckoo (that was still here last Thursday) now appeared 160km south of Paris but Neil Calbrade has also weighed in with another long-awaited BirdTrack Challenge grip-back: Crossbill! A two-tick day in June?! Who'd have thought it? Nice one Neil - 130.

If at first you don't suck seed...

... make your own nyger feeder!

Since the Lodgers' gripping start on the redpoll front, we've been grilling the modest offering of redpolls (among several hundred Siskin) on the Nunnery Lakes reserve at every opportunity, to no avail. That was until today, however, when I blundered in to our ringing site to fill up the feeders, only to be smacked in the face by a monster Mealy Redpoll that was feeding away quite happily on my home-made nyger feeder. Incredibly, considering my complete lack of fieldcraft on this occasion, it stayed put for the next 5 minutes. Fantastic!

That takes the score to 92.

Since writing this post, a bumper ringing session on Saturday
not only landed us the bird in question (above) but a second one as well...

...posing below with one of its Lesser cousins

REAL large white birds...

...as opposed to plastic ones were the reward for a pre-work ringing session on the Nunnery Lakes reserve this morning. 29 Bewick's Swans did us proud (and got me a personal Lakes tick - that's 129 now, Darren!) by flying right overhead whilst we were processing Lesser Redpolls and Bramblings, calling as they went. Fortunately nobody had a bird in their hand at the crucial moment so bins were raised in unison... before we all turned to former Slimbridge volunteer Lucy Wright for confirmation we'd made the right call.

No need for dodgy plastic imitations here!