Plenty of finches but few new warblers

Heysham Obs
Despite a ringing total of almost 60 new birds by the office, the cloudy conditions, albeit with a NW wind failed to deliver any numbers of warblers, with Willow Warbler especially absent and far fewer Whitethroat than yesterday (when there were five on a fence together by office).  However, 5 new juvenile Blackcap were ringed and a couple more Chiffchaff.  The Willow Warbler to Chiffchaff ringing ratio this year is something like 90:72 i.e. a fantastic number of Chiffchaff for this early in the autumn.  Every chance that Chiffchaff totals will be higher than Willow Warbler this year for the first time ever

Most of the new birds were a fresh gang of finches finding the seed again after a few days where the stock was empty - unlike many other places these days, we seem to have a bottomless pit of Greenfinches with some excellent recoveries providing the incentive to ring them.

A too late in the tide check of the outfalls produced 9 Med Gulls with the usual habit of 1CY remaining to feed over the tide reflected in 7 of them being of that age class

White-spotted Pug in the moth trap