Hello All
Coming up on the 16 August we are hosting an event run by the Rye Meads Ringing Group (RMRG), Wonderful warblers, 8 am - 10 am, £8 non-members and £4 members.
This time of year warblers are starting to form mixed flocks with tits and possibly something like a treecreeper. The breeding season is coming to a close and they are concentrating on feeding up before the long journey back to their wintering grounds in Africa or Europe. Sedge Warblers can double their body weight before leaving the UK! They tend to fatten up in the large reedbeds along the channel coasts of Britain and France before rocketing off across the Sahara but good numbers of aphids in the Draper reedbed in the last few years seems to be encouraging them to fatten up here as well. Reed Warblers also put on weight but move much more leisurely along the coastal marshes down along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal into north Africa and take the shorter coastal crossing of the Sahara down to their west-African wintering grounds.
Photo by Simon Hummerstone
To give you a taster of what you may see on this event i thought i would update you on some of the RMRG recent activity. On Saturday morning (early!) they had the nets set up in the reedbed from the Draper hide and caught and ringed 140 warblers, another 70 were caught along the toll stream, breaking the 200 mark! These were mainly reed and sedge, with sedge almost breaking the 100 mark! During a second go at ringing in the same area this morning only 3 of the same birds were caught along with 31 new reed and sedge warbler, showing how these warblers are constantly moving through the site at this time of year. So you never now when something unusual may turn up!
This evening the RMRG will be looking at ringing some roosting swallows and continuing their work on colour ringing green sandpipers at Rye Meads. So if you ever see a green sandpiper with colour rings on its legs don't forget to make a note and report it to the Rye Meads Ringing Group.
We hope you can join us and the RMRG on Saturday 16 August for wonderful warblers!.
Thanks and thanks to Toby from the RMRG for the information.
Vicky