Colour ringing Twite
Had a great morning in September at Dove Holes Quarry colour ringing the Twite which breed there. Twite are a small brown finch and their breeding range is very restricted in the UK.
We met Jamie Dunning on site at 7:30 am, by the time he had already made the first catch in the whoosh-net, which was a mix of Twite, Linnet and Goldfinch. They were extracted and brought back to the ringing station to be processed after the whoosh-net was re-set ready for firing again. The Linnets and Goldfinches were just fitted with metal rings but we fitted the Twite with plastic colour rings and a metal ring: metal ring and a colour ring on the left leg, and two colour rings on the right leg. The colour rings are so the birds can be re-sighted, for example one of the birds ringed at Dove Holes over-winters in Snowdonia. We colour ringed 3 new Twite, and re-trapped 2 so a good result! After we had processed these birds, it was quite slow with hardly anything landing in the catching area, though we did catch 3 more Goldfinch and a Meadow Pipit before packing away.
It was an amazing morning with my first experience of whoosh-netting and colour ringing. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back again!
