Ringing

The recent heavy rains has turned the small pond at the old stone quarry behind Riffa airbase, affectionately called the Diplomatic Wadi by us here, into a small lake. We had picked this site for our weekend morning session as we expected to find it full of waders and wintering passerines. On our arrival at 6.25am many Teal, Black-necked Stilts, small flocks of mixed waders and Moorhen darted for cover into the now isolated and inaccessible reed bed at the back of the lake under the old rock face. We set up our nets across the area to the north of the small lake amongst the smaller ponds and grassy patches. We were unfortunately soon joined by a flock of goats and a pair of Sparrowhawks that supplemented a Kestrel that was already watching us trying to divert his breakfast into our nets. Having committed ourselves to the site we settled down to await the birds return which had since disappeared due mainly to the hunting activities of the Sparrowhawks. The site remained largely inactive until around 9am when five or six Willow Warblers put in an appearance in the thorns nearby. The waders did not start moving around until 9.30am when a Green Sandpiper obliged us by becoming our first catch of 2007. We decided to take it out of the nets straight away managing in the process to flush two Redshanks and two Water Pipits into our other nets. This bag of five birds proved to be our total catch for what was otherwise a very quiet day.
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Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus

First Redshank Tringa totanus

The second Redshank Tringa totanus

The pair of Water Pipits Anthus spinoletta note the difference in the appearance of each bird.
In the pictures of the tails, heads and wings below the top bird is always on the left.

Brendan at play

Camera Nikon D70 lens 18-70mm