Heysham Obs
A strange morning with a 'fret' knocking any seabird visibility on the head & encouraging a session with mist nets by the office interspersed with report writing. The moths were good by recent standards and surely not all due to the recent revelations that moth trap bulbs lose their efficiency after a few months and should be replaced. Certainly the hut trap blended bulb was looking a bit yellow and its replacement was a lot "whiter" but surely the upturn in moths was mainly due to temperatures/wind direction the last couple of nights?
Office ringing
A major surprise comprised three seemingly all male retrap Lesser Whitethroat caught in the same net in quick succession and all being ringed either as juveniles in autumn 2010 or 2CY in spring 2011. None of these were breeding immediately locally but were surely not new arrivals?? Very odd. In a similar vein was a retrap adult male Common Whitethroat from 2010 in the same net, again neither of the two noisy immediately-local males which still seem to be unpaired
Moths
Common Swift, Scalloped Hazel, Flame Carpet, Common Pug all kicked their year off whilst Hebrew Character and Clouded Drab were drawing their year to a close
