Damp, Damage and Dippers

With the latter half of this week off, the plan had been for some serious ringing. Unfortunately, the weather has been somewhat… what’s the technical term? Shit? Thursday did see the nets deployed at Taf Fechan in the hope of more dippers. This outing was just The Solman and myself with the rest of the regulars crying off with various excuses that involved “I am on Fair Isle!” (Yawn), something unimportant involving lapwing and “I have a meeting!” (Priorities all wrong there). It proved to be a mixed session.

In the negative column was watching a female mallard pelting up river toward the net. Solman was very excited by this, while I just sighed the sigh of a man accepting the inevitable, which, in this case, was the mallard carrying on up river unimpeded while the net’s mesh was enlarged somewhat. Next up was the best display of bungling idiocy I’ve done in a while as I simultaneously put another hole in the net and my waders while going to extract the last dipper of the day (oh yes more than one). Oh and it hammered down at one stage.

In the positive column, and lets remain positive (waders and nets can be mended. Right?), were of course the birds, the site and the company. Four dippers, a retrap grey wag and two new chaffinches (new for the site) were our reward for a silly o’clock start. We’ve now ringed nine dippers, from at least four pairs, in the reserve with more still to qualify for rings! Quality.