I think for the last three years, I've combined a blog post about ringing Little Egrets and Chough in North Wales. Two species I really love ringing as when I started out ringing, I wouldn't in my wildest dreams imagine that I'd be so lucky as to handle such fantastic birds.
Yesterday I joined Tony, Adrienne and Kelvin at the Bangor colony and ringed 8 super Little Egrets. The first 5 were brilliant being almost fully grown and rather well behaved in both wriggliness and keeping their fluids to themselves. The next 3 however were much smaller and decided we'd enjoy a lap full of shrimps. It shocks me every single time just how small these actually are.
Last week, I joined Tony and spent an evening on the Lleyn ringing two broods of Chough totalling 6 birds. We were quite shocked by the second brood as the calls they were making from their nest made them sound really small, but when Tony got to the next, they were huge! It was almost like handling adults (except they don't try and fly away. An aspect of Chough ringing I love is how you can just plonk then on your knee and they'll just stand there having a look around and won't try and get away.)
Two fantastic species, two further ringing experiences I will have fond memories of!
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