Ringing picking up a little...

So, ringing is picking up a little with just over 50 species in the nets, but the real story  is the overhead migration today, which has been spectacular. Well over 500 Steppe Buzzards (Buteo buteo vulpines), 36 Black Kites (Milvus migrans), an Osprey (Pandion heliaetus), an Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), a Booted Eagle (Aquila pennata), a Montagu's Harrier (Circus pygargus), a Pallid Harrier (Circus Macrourus), a few Black Storks (Ciconia negra), all gliding silently above us, while we were ringing. The numbers were not of all of the raptors overhead because we had a ringing station to run, but still gives a little bit of a sense of what was happening right above Lotan.

We had a Thrush Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia) in the net today, as well as a Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) in beautiful summer plumage. The number of Lesser Whitethroats (Sylvia curruca) is starting to dwindle, and the Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) are rising. We also had a large number of House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) in the net, the Spanish Sparrows seem to have moved on.

Here are two pictures...

Thrush Nightingale

Redstart

Steppe Buzzards