12 March 2012

Bird Ringing at Umzumbe Floodplain 11.03.2012

What a great few hours of ringing before the wind got too strong and almost blew over a net, a good job we packed up then as just after we left it started to rain and 127mm of rain came down in the next 10 hours.
Anyway the ringing was good with 43 birds being ringed and 4 recaptures, 2 of which were Great Reed Warblers that I ringed in January 2012 and the other 2 were Yellow Weavers of which one was ringed as an adult female on 11th October 2003, this is now the longevity record for this species, just shows the importance of a constant ringing site.

Birds ringed included 7 juvenile African (Bluebilled) Firefinch's you can clearly see the nodules instead of the gape.

juvenile African Firefinch


A few Warblers were ringed including Great Reed and African Reed as well as 2 Dark-capped Yellow Warblers

young Dark-capped Yellow Warbler


Another special bird was a Redfaced Cisticola, only the second one that I have ringed so this was a very special bird indeed.



Redfaced Cisticola


Numerous other birds were caught and ringed but they are all very common at this spot and have been discussed in other posts