Following on from yesterday's post, in the early afternoon we visited Stanwell to do a quick reccie to see if hirundines looked possible as the cloud base was fairly low. They weren't and it was just too windy. However, we did see that the Starlings were bringing their young in to feed in decent numbers and elected to try this morning.
We put up three doubles in areas parallel to the perimeter fence with a single at an established net location - just in case the Starlings deserted the field due to our disturbance.
It wasn't long before some youngsters bowled into the net.
compared to the normally dark, black colouration in juveniles.
The field has been empty for years but a little detective work revealed that, although currently vacant, animals have been in there recently and the presence of animal feaces is probably increasing the amount of insects available for the Starlings to feed on.
The bi-catch included a pair of Linnet, some Blackcaps, Whitethroat including a recapture from last year, and a Lesser Whitethroat.
Totals: 31 (1)
Starling - 24
Lesser Whitethroat - 1
Whitethroat - 2 (1)
Blackcap - 2
Linnet - 2