Young Corncrake, Nene Washes RSPB, 23rd July, 2014

Last Wednesday we were up early to get to the RSPB Nene Washes reserve for 8.00 – we’d been asked to join in the first of this years Corncrake trapping sessions, providing data on the ongoing reintroduction scheme there. After an initial briefing we set off in a line beating a 300m strip of wet meadow, deep in the heart of the reserve. It took us a couple of hours, slowly pushing the birds – at least that’s the idea, towards a line of nets and traps. We didn’t see anything during the drive, except I found an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar, until we got to the very end – then in the last 30m several birds hurled themselves into the traps. We caught five birds in all, two retraps, two un-rung juveniles and a chick. A pretty good catch!

The happy bunch of beaters

Getting to grips with the first ‘catch of the day’

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Processing begins

Re-trap, one of two dozen males on the reserve this year

Ringing one of this year’s juveniles

DNA swab

What a cute little black chick

The moment of freedom

and talking about ‘cute’ – the Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar