Yesterday I got the recovery details of the Safring Barn Swallow controlled at Tzor'a Valley Ringing Station two weeks ago. The bird was ringed in Huntley's Farm, Chisamba, Zambia in January 2011 as part of a swallow project carried out by Bennie van den Brink. The distance between the ringing sites is 5,228 km, my farthest and first from Africa for Tzor'a Valley Ringing Station. I uploaded a map in Tzor'a page, see here. Thanks to Bennie van den Brink and to Henri Bouwmeester.
Last days I was very busy with ringing. Starting with Monday and Tuesday mornings at JBO, that produced nice sessions with good passage of Common Redstart. Juvenile Ruppell's Warbler and Collared Flycatcher were the most interesting.
On Wednesday I started with a great alfalfa ringing session that produced 249 birds. Most were Yellow Wagtails, but also 11 Red-throated Pipit, 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Fan-tailed Cisticolas and a few Willow Warblers. Every autumn I spend a few mornings ringing Yellow Wagtails in the alfalfa fields, but this season those flocks were absent and only now arrived the first significant flock with about 5,000 birds. Thanks to Francis, Avishai and Yishai.
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| The alfalfa field |
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| Ruppell's Warbler |
I ringed in a swallow roost every day this week. Most swallows have already moved south, but a few flocks are still coming down to roost. One Nightjar was also caught after I extracted the swallows from the nets, a first to Tzor'a ringing.
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| Nightjar |
Little Bittern E-17994 was ringed two weeks ago and recaptured 13 days later. The bird is in active moult and I documented the moult sequence. At first P7 was growing, and 13 days later P10 was growing, see images.
Now I returned home and my inbox is full with about 100 German and Polish White Stork recoveries - lots of boring work.
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| My inbox today |