Swan Ringing

Paul, his brother and friend came into today to carry out the annual ringing of the cygnets. What a mare they had!! They only managed to catch one out four of the cygnets and the male, who was not best pleased.

The hefty thing weighed in at 10lbs, 2lbs lighter than his Dad - and yes its was male.

Paul and co will be coming back in over the next few weeks to catch the others.

Thats the swans not speaking to me now for a few weeks - ha ha

If I am not on holiday next time Paul comes in, I will take some more photos.

Thanks to Paul for this one

This Weeks Bird Count from Jimmy

Here is Jimmys count from yesterday:

Mute Swan with young : 6 (4 are young)
Mallard : 4
Tufted Duck with young : 11 (7 are young)
Moorhen : 2
Coot with young : 6 (2 are young)
Black Headed Gull : 7
Lesser Black Backed Gull : 2
Herring Gull : 3
Woodpigeon : 3
Collared Dove : 4
Sandmartin : 1
Swallow : 11
House Martin : 6
Pied Wagtail : 15
Willow Warbler : 1
Magpie : 1
Jackdaw : 2
Crow : 1
Greenfinch : 2
Goldfinch : 5
Linnet : 1

Blagdon Visit

Yesterday, Helen, Paul, Kevin and myself were very kindly invited to visit Lord Ridley and Blagdon Estate to have a look at their wetlands area within the estate. This area is vast and is made up of two parts, both of which are fab. Lets hope that our wetlands can look like this some day, but obviously on a smaller scale.

Lord Ridley is a pleasure to be in the company of and has a lot of knowledge which we are lapping up with extreme excitement.

He has asked us to take some of the seeds of his collection of trees so that we can have a collection of our own on site. We are looking forward to planting these soon.

Here are a few pictures of the wetland areas at Blagdon.

Area 1

Area 2

We are hoping to go back soon and visit other areas of the Blagdon Estate and look forward to hearing some more stories from the Lord.

I would like to thank the Lord and Shaun Hartley for sparing the time to show us about. We were all very impressed and now full of more ideas on improving our wetlands area.

Update and Bird Count

Not alot happening at the mo with regards the Wetlands Project. We are sourcing new funding so that we can construct a bird hide and small bird feeding station - so I will keep you all posted on what is happening with that.

Our geese have finally flown. Good luck to the baby - who I name "Emu" and lets hope we see him again.

Thought I would give you some bird figures for this week:

Mute Swan with young : 6
Mallard : 3
Tufted Duck with young : 11
Kestrel : 1
Moorhen with young : 2
Cost with young : 7
Oystercatcher : 1
Lesser Black Backed Gull 2
Feral Pigeon : 3
Woodpigeon : 3
Collared Dove : 2
Swallow : 8
House Martin : 15
Pied Wagtail : 1
Jackdaw : 2
Crow : 2
Goldfinch : 2

Not alot of birds here at the mo when Jimmy is here. Lets hope this picks up too.

More bird counts next week