6th and 7th July 2010 - Owls, Reeds and Waterfowl

On Tuesday, I went out with Barrie Watson round my local area to recheck the Barn Owl boxes, but first was to check a new box that I had found near Rowhook and on inspection a new female was present with two small chicks. This was a good find and is a new breeding species for this tetrad.

Then onto the others although the Dawes Farm pair still only had very small young and the Kingsfold pair which had had a single chick (pictured before) and three unhatched eggs now only had three eggs which were being brooded! This was a weird scenario as is was too short a time for the single chick to have fledged but they were still brooding the other three eggs, unless they were all new eggs!! Who knows! The only consolation was that we managed to catch the both adults with the male ringed on the last visit and the female being one of Barrie's that was ringed as a chick in 2005 just north-west of Crawley, so not far at all.
Wednesday after work I went to Warnham LNR to check the last two Reed Warbler nests with Eddie and although unfortunately too late for one which had already fledged, the second held quite well grown chicks (above) which were ringed. Then just further on the Reed Bunting nest fond last time with eggs now had three perfect sized chicks (below).
We then went to check the sluice and were pleased to find a few young Mallard and two juvenile Coot feeding at the bottom, so donned the waders and climbed in further down stream and flushed them all up to the plunge pool where I managed to net four birds including both Coot (below) and two of the Mallard.
As I got home, started watering the garden and noticed something flapping around in the greenhouse and on inspection found an unringed juvenile Blackbird unable to find its way to the open door!

Birds ringed: (Retraps in brackets)
Barn Owl - 1 (1)
Reed Warbler - 4 nestlings
Reed Bunting - 3 nestlings
Coot - 2
Mallard - 2
Blackbird - 1