Freaky Friday (on a Monday)

I'd be lying if I told you my heart didn't beat a few extra beats when I spotted this at the far end of the net. It was only as I started to take the bird out that I realised it was a Chaffinch — a stunning looking bird.

It's a female (sexed on wing length and with a fully developed brood-patch). If she's breeding nearby, this is the first time we've seen her. It's not an albino, obviously, nor is it leucistic; if I had to pick a big word from the Dutch Birding paper to make me sound clever, I'd go for schizochroic.

We also caught this Ring Ouzel-wannabe (this one is [partially] leucistic).

Away from the aberrants, it was an excellent morning's ringing with 56 birds of 16 species ringed (totals online— click Ringing). We caught a remarkable five Red-backed Shrikes, two males and three females.

Also our first Marsh Warbler of the season.

And our first (and potentially only) Cuckoo, a female.

There were three Common Rosefinch in the lighthouse garden this morning; the afternoon was spent painting the outside of the station building so no birding today.

[I had planned to write something more about the Cuckoo and also something on Common Whitethroat moult — we had two 2cy birds that had moulted primaries during pre-breeding moult — but I'm a bit too tired to write anything that makes sense; something to look forward to another day, I guess...]