Back in Cambridge!

Back in Cambridge, after a small stop off near the Ashdown forest. Beautiful woods there, and lots of birdwatchers (which is one indicator I use for good birds!!). Hopefully I'll be ringing back in my little patch tomorrow morning.

I got another amazingly cool ringing tick the other day. I was out with my trainer (Jim), and we were each manning separate sites when I got a call over the walky-talky. They were just about out of range so I heard a 'crackle crackle ringed crackle jay?'

'No'

'Well you better come over here then!!' (me having walked into range by this point). So I ran back to Jim's station and there in the bag was a fantastically beautiful Jay, a lot more chestnut than I'd expected with the brightest blue imaginable. Has to be one of my top 5 ringing ticks!!! Pictures at maalie.blogspot.com (Jim's website).

In other news, one of my nets has a big hole in! Not sure how it happened but I suspect it was a blackbird, because there was a blackbird in that section of the net that tried (and succeeded) in escaping. Although I didnt really think they were that capable of causing holes. Another trip to the BTO headquarters is in order to get some mending material, and also I'd like another net set so that I can leave one at home and not have to worry about transporting them.