Pulli ringing at Linacre

Last Tuesday I went down to Linacre with the Sorby Group to check the nest boxes and ring the first of this year's chicks or pulli. The first box we checked, Box 18, contained a brood of 4 well developed Great Tits.

Great Tit pullus

 

Over the next 3 hours my trainer and I checked all the boxes and ringed another 40+ pulli of either Blue or Great Tit. We also checked on the Song Thrushes and found 3 birds in the nest, which we ringed (my first Song Thrush pulli).

 

Song Thrush pullus

 

Some birds were still too young to ring on Tuesday, so I returned today with Alan and we ringed another 46 pulli (all Blue Tits) and 1 adult Blue Tit, a 5 female (born last year) with a very well developed brood patch, that was brooding some young chicks in one of the boxes. After checking the tit boxes we checked the 2 Mandarin boxes to see if the eggs had hatched. Last time we checked them (see here), both boxes contained brooding females with 10 eggs in each box, but today they were both empty, except for 2 addled eggs in 1 box and 1 dead duckling in the other. Hopefully the other ducklings got off safely. Out on the water the first Great-crested Grebe chick of the year was spotted on it's mum's back on the middle reservoir.

 

Again, there were still a few nests with young chicks not ready to ring, so I'll be back again next week!