Butterfingers

[LMG]

Managed to ring a few birds ok but then I had a male great tit. Just wouldn't keep still. I'd nearly finished recording all the necessary facts and figures, so went on to weigh it. For those of you who don't know, you place the bird in a plastic cone (which weighs 2 grammes exactly) and attatch it to a spring weight, read off the weight and subtract two. Well my fidget bottom, meaning the bird, wasn't having this and turned round in the cone and flew out! Someone managed to catch it quickly but was I embarrassed! I'm still learning. You seem to need 3 hands, have fantastic eye sight (to read the numbers on the rings) and have a good memory to remember everything you're taught! I have a long way to go. But I really enjoy it.

[Reader]

LMG

Don't worry, even the experts can get it wrong. I was in Portugal at the Alvor ringing station when they caught a Hoopoe. They are regular birds around there but a bird that is very rarely caught so this was to be a prize ringing. Unfortunately the bird had other ideas and as the expert ringer was trying to position the body to receive the rings the bird wriggled free. It had received no measurements, weighing in fact nothing other than being looked at, albeit very closely. I was also about to take a photo when it shot free of the lady's finger.