DAILY UPDATES - Loch Garten nest - MAY 2019

Hasty live snaps but I must do a video when this "little bird" leaves:

Dang, I wish my quality was better but I can't do anything about it.  I think this has been somewhat spoilt by efforts to improve.

Anyway, the Willow Warbler (don't all worship or scoff at me, depending on the ID verdict, at once!) treated us to a little preen:

Oh, how delightful!

What a great clip of the willow warbler, scylla! And I found the peregrine digression a welcome diversion, too. You have an uncanny way of making lemonade out of lemons. Highlighted by this year's challenges. <3 ;-*

Well I for one worship Scylla's video. Amazing close up! The challenge I throw out to her is next time try and get the wing spread - if it is emarginated to the 5th primary then it is a confirmed willow warbler, emarginated to the 6th and it is a chifchaff. Go on Scylla! If anyone can do it, then you can!

Scylla is quite entitled to say some people are never satisfied and I plead guilty as charged. Of course if we had sound we wouldn't have to look for emargination. I shall now shut up on the subject of sound.

Willow warbler and chiff chaff are my most difficult birds to identify, unless it's chiff chaffing.

CRinger said:

Well I for one worship Scylla's video. Amazing close up! The challenge I throw out to her is next time try and get the wing spread - if it is emarginated to the 5th primary then it is a confirmed willow warbler, emarginated to the 6th and it is a chifchaff. Go on Scylla! If anyone can do it, then you can!

LOL  I remember hearing that at the first Birdfair I went to at Rutland.  BTO were giving ringing demos throughout the day.  Hmmm could I every really be able to tell?  No!  But I can recognise the chiffchaff by song, one of the easiest once you know!

I know I am going to get told off now for diverging and going off on a tangent on the Osprey thread, but I have always been a maverick................. My bird ringing trainer was amazing. The books say the only way to identify a bird in the hand and distinguish between a ww and a chiffie is to count the emargination. Its foolproof. WW is emarginated to the 5th and a chiifie to the 6th. But ringers with lots of experience can tell by looking at the colour of the bird, especially its legs. I was training and didn;t have this experience. We caught a bird 1 day and I was processing it and my trainer said 'So, willow or chiff'. I said 'Emarginated to the 6th, its a chiffie.' He said 'count again.' I counted again to 6 and said 'chiffie.' He sighed at me and said 'look at the other wing, its a ww.' I looked at the other wing and counted 6 again.' 'Chiffie.' He said 'I can tell just from colour its a ww.. Pass it here.' I gave him the bird. He took it, examined it and said 'My God, you are right.' That's the strangest looking chiffie I have ever seen. Get the books out.' We got the books out and after 10 minutes or so we both agreed. It was the Siberian race chiffie. He said 'I have been ringing over 25 years and this is the first ever Siberian chiffie I have ever held. Absolutely amazing. This is one for the record books.' He let the bird go and we watched it fly to a nearby tree. I said 'It might have been one for the record books if you had remembered to put a ring on its leg before you let it go.'.