Today we ringed at a new site for me, Marlborough Sewage Treatment Works. It is a small site located on the edge of the town and is largely concrete, a contrast to most of Matt's ringing sites. We set a series of 2 shelf nets around the tanks for wagtails and pipits and a single 40' net next to a feeder in a small amount of scrub on the edge of the site. With nets all up before it got light, we were able to make a cuppa (also in contrast to most of Matt's ringing sites) and enjoy the sunrise and flocks of corvids, thrushes and wagtails leaving their roost sites.
We were then joined by Phil, a RAU student, who Matt met on a volunteer work party and who was keen to experience ringing first hand. Neither of us had seen such large flocks of wagtails before. Matt predicted we would catch 15-20 Pieds/White and a couple of Greys - in fact the split was much more even (15 Pied/10 White/17 Grey), perhaps indicating a good breeding season for Greys? We were able to spend time going over the ID features of Pieds and Whites and I was surprised with the high proportion of Whites we caught. 3 of the Greys were retraps from 2013 and 2014, 1 Pied retrap from 2014 and 1 Meadow Pipit retrap from 2013. Most interestingly we had a control Grey.
Although wagtails and pipits dominated the catch as expected, we caught a variety of other species including 10 Goldcrest, 3 wintering Chiffchaff and retrap Marsh Tit and Dunnock. Just as I was leaving we spotted a colony of House Sparrows and Matt decided to stay and put up a net for them - and managed to catch one before they rapidly deserted the site - so we ended the day on 105 birds of 16 species. MP, SW, AF, PH
Pied Wagtail 14 (1), White Wagtail 10, Grey Wagtail 13 (3 + 1 control), Meadow Pipit 12 (1), Blue Tit 16, Robin 4, Coal Tit 1, Great Tit 2, Goldcrest 10, Chiffchaff 3, Wren 1, Blackbird 3, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1, Marsh Tit 0 (1), Wood Pigeon1, Dunnock 5 (1), House Sparrow 1