With rain falling for a few days beforehand you never know
what to do when it comes to ringing, do you believe the weather forecast or
not. Well 2 out of the 3 weather forecast’s that I use told me that Sunday 9th
Sept would be perfect and the 3rd was undecided, so the word went
out that ringing would take place, and what a day it was. The nets were up
before the crack of dawn (normal practice), which meant that they were up
before 05h45.
In total 21 birds were caught in the patch of forest that I
use, now catching birds in a forest is difficult, however this patch is low
enabling some of the canopy birds to be caught. Out of the 21 birds 7 were
recaptures, including Greenbacked Camaroptera, Redcapped (Natal) Robinchat,
Whitebrowed Scrubrobin, a Pair of Terrestrial Brownbul the female of which was
ringed here 6 years ago and recaptured 5 times since it was ringed, and the
best recapture (beauty wise) was a Gorgeous Bushshrike that was ringed here in
November last year as an immature bird and was now in full adult plumage.
 |
| Gorgeous Bushshrike |
Some of the birds that were new captures included an Emerald
Spotted Wood Dove, a bird that is very seldom recorded on our coast so this was
special, in fact it is one of those birds that is not easily seen. Another
special bird was a Knysna Turaco, these must be one of the most attractive
birds around, the facial markings are exquisite and I challenge any woman to
apply makeup so perfectly. Other birds included a pair of Southern Black Tits,
not a common bird and very seldom caught in the nets. One of the last birds was
an immature Orangebreasted Bushshrike.
 |
| Emerald Spotted Dove |
 |
| Knysna Turaco |
 |
| immature Orangebreasted Bushshrike |
No comments:
Post a Comment