A beautiful sunny day with a bitter north-west wind saw me at Beale Park today meeting Dave, another volunteer who is involved in a lot of bird ringing around the area.

Three mist nets were up, one over 6 metres high and were checked every 20 minutes.

                                                             Mist net, centre left

A female goldfinch was caught in the mist net located in the reed beds. I had always presumed that the goldfinch sexes were indistinguishable but Dave being the expert that he is, pointed out that the female's red face covers up to the eye area, whereas the male's extends slightly behind the eyes.

                                                         Female goldfinch in mist net

                                                       Carefully untangling

As the goldfinch had already been ringed last year, it was just a matter of an undignified weigh-in. She was placed upside down with her head and most of her body inside an old film roll case and then onto the scales. Larger birds are put into mugs but they don't seem to mind.

                                                          Undignified weigh-in

I made my way to the lake area - red kites were busy looking for worms in the grass and the Canada geese were being as noisy as ever.

                                                                 Canada goose

Two jays and a great-spotted woodpecker were also making themselves heard, while a heron hunkered down against the wind.

                                                                        Heron

As I was leaving a large flock of siskin were making their way over the lake to the alders on the far side.