With limited ringing opportunities due to the unsettled weather, we took a lockdown friendly walk around South Dykes. As the wind dropped and the afternoon sun came out we saw plenty of birds including flocks of mixed titmice, a handful of foraging Goldcrest and at least 60 Chaffinch feeding along the field margins with a few Greenfinch and Yellowhammer mixed in.
The highlight however was seeing a male Nuthatch that we had originally ringed on the 20th March 2019, we were able to read the ring from numerous photos taken of the bird. We caught both a male and female Nuthatch on the 20th March 2019. They were sexed by colour of the flanks and under tail coverts, which are a brighter rufous-red and well demarcated from the whitish or buff lower throat, belly and breast in the males.
Both birds were aged as 2nd year birds (born in 2018), based on contrast in the median and greater covert feathers. These 2 birds were the first Nuthatches to be ringed in the observatory recording area, up until this point they were a very scare visitor to the headland. A pair were initially seen in the South Dykes area from October 2017, with nesting recorded the following year and in June 2019 3 birds were recorded in the same area.
