The ringing season part 1

The ringing season in Kvismare has been standardised since the early 1990's with 2 sites and 20 and 24 nets in each. The largest site (Vallen) has 24 * 9metre nets in a mixture of small scrub land and wet reed bed. The other site (Banvallen) is a line of bushes bordering an old railway line and now running alongside a wet reed area.

The ringing season starts on, or around the Midsummer area in Sweden; this year we began on 24th June. The season runs until the end of September. Nets are to be up by dawn and down 6 hours after unless the catching is good in which case the ringers' can stay on, ringing until the catching slows.

Between 24th June and 8th July we have ringed on all but 2 mornings and this was due to heavy rain/wind. We have caught around 900 birds of many species. Ad-hoc ringing has also taken place and this added a few more nice species to our lists.

The Highlights so far are shown below. 

Red-backed Shrike - Lanius collurio (male)

Bearded Tit - Panurus biarmicus 1cy male (left) and 1cy female (right)

Penduline tit - Remiz pendulinus. Female (2nd from right) and young.

Snipe - Gallinago gallinago 2cy+

Penduline Tit - Remiz pendulinus. Adult male, originally ringed in France.

Black tern - Chlidonias niger. 1st Calendar year

Great Reed warbler - Acrocephalus arundinaceus. 2cy with data logger

Black tern - Chlidonias niger. 7 of 10 1cy birds caught

Wheatear - Oenanthe oenanthe. 1st Calendar year

Kestrel - Falco tinnunculus. 1 of 7 chicks ringed.