My Training Just Kicked In .....

[Outlaw Pete 2,224]

When I glanced out at the trap and saw I had a Wren!!! FFS! What was that doing in a trap cage heavily baited with peanuts?!?

Well, what ever. There is was. And now I had to process it. Yes. Me. With the broken glasses! (Only one lens in my ringing glasses) And, horror of horrors; Wrens need an 'AA' ring. The smallest there is. Oh, and wrens are like smoke, to hold!

But, like I say, my Training, as a licensed BTO Ringer, just kicked in and I found my self calm and centred.

Brought the little sweetheart in here. Had everything prepared and reached into my Catching Box. It was like holding a butterfly.

Ringed, winged and weighed, almost in a trance state. I just had to take a snap!

 

And away he went

Then came the palpitations. The ragged breathing. The trembling!

Looking back, I s'pose I must have breathed, as I processed that little mite?

[jeppi26 1,855]

Very nice Pete I was sat watching one of these yesterday while out on a walk round the local nature reserve heard some young birds chirping round where I was watching them aswell could be the wrens young?

[Outlaw Pete 2,224]

..... heard some young birds chirping ..... could be the wrens young?

 

 

To be honest with ye, Rex? I've generally considered wrens to be silent little buggers ~ unless they're belting out that mega decibel, ear splitting song of theirs.

 

It's like when I'm ringing stuff; Lot of birds are silent during processing. Tits scream a constant torrent of abuse

[jeppi26 1,855]

 

..... heard some young birds chirping ..... could be the wrens young?

 

 

To be honest with ye, Rex? I've generally considered wrens to be silent little buggers ~ unless they're belting out that mega decibel, ear splitting song of theirs.

 

It's like when I'm ringing stuff; Lot of birds are silent during processing. Tits scream a constant torrent of abuse

Yup that's that's what made me stop and look about to see what it the other half kept asking what I was doing just kept telling her to ssssshhhh lollol so she called me a weirdo hahaha

[fireman 10,917]

Brilliant post again Op and many thanks for taking the time and effort in sharing it all with us,just being nosey but how heavy ,well heavy seems the wrong word for a Wren so how light was she when you weighed her?.

[budharley 945]

Brilliant post again Op and many thanks for taking the time and effort in sharing it all with us,just being nosey but how heavy ,well heavy seems the wrong word for a Wren so how light was she when you weighed her?.

I was just going to ask the same thing

whats your guess fireman mines 12 gram

Edited August 9, 2013 by budharley

[jeppi26 1,855]

Al say 10 grams?

[Outlaw Pete 2,224]

Or, as Brucie used to say ..... " Loww Er!!! "

 

As you're all asking, look, here's todays three results (I don't post about every single bird I catch and process here, obviously! Drive you all mad with it and I'd get nothing else done!)

 

Wren: 9.4g.

 

Coal Tit: 9.4g.

 

Great Tit: 18.5g.

 

See? And yet, the coal tit was a piece of piss. Processed loads of those. Never a problem. But, that wren, at the same weight, left me shaking. Why? Because, as I said: They're like trying to hold onto smoke!

 

Oh, and that great tit bit me. You wouldn't want to feel that, unless you were one of those strange people! Little buggers can't half clamp down!

[fireman 10,917]

Brilliant and to tell youthe truth i was going to say about 9.5 g's myself and maybe next time OP have some fun with us on the guessing of weight of a bird.I have no idea at all what any of mine would weight but this thread has got me wondering now.

The best description of holding small birds ever that "like trying to hold smoke" one .

[KittleRox 2,147]

another great wee thread, amazing a great tits double the weight of a coal tit, I would never have believed that

[Outlaw Pete 2,224]

Had a blue tit, since I posted that ..... It's all in my log book.

 

Actually, I wished like hell I thought I could have got a decent shot of this blue tit. The moment I saw it in the trap cage, the colours just screamed at me!

 

It was unreal! The depth! Anyone could have been forgiven for believing this was some other form of tit. Similar to a blue. But with strikingly bolder colours. The blue was azure. The yellow deep lemon. If only the light level had been that bit higher, I'd have maybe managed a non flash shot.

 

This is just a little side benefit of my work, see? I get to wonder at this sort of beauty. Right up close and personal. Like that tree creeper

[Frann 882]

Great thread OP, thanks for sharing. Ive always loved our feathered friends since I was a kid and I love how you describe them with such care and detail

[Bosun11 537]

Great post Pete..

[fireman 10,917]

Had a blue tit, since I posted that ..... It's all in my log book.

 

Actually, I wished like hell I thought I could have got a decent shot of this blue tit. The moment I saw it in the trap cage, the colours just screamed at me!

 

It was unreal! The depth! Anyone could have been forgiven for believing this was some other form of tit. Similar to a blue. But with strikingly bolder colours. The blue was azure. The yellow deep lemon. If only the light level had been that bit higher, I'd have maybe managed a non flash shot.

 

This is just a little side benefit of my work, see? I get to wonder at this sort of beauty. Right up close and personal. Like that tree creeper

That's one thing our birds do lack OP and that's the deepness of colour that a wild bird has and only last week i had a wild goldie cock sat a foot away (on the outside of my aviary ) from my captive one and he sure showed my one up for vividness of colour .

[Outlaw Pete 2,224]

Damn! Doesn't it just go to show then, Fireman? Because, as I'm sure I've mentioned on here, somewhere, before .....

 

Okay. Let me put this, afresh, into the context of this point:

 

I, frankly, grew up getting my closest views of birds in a certain pet shop. And, yes ..... They were wild caught birds. Hoola hoop rings. Somersaulting Goldies. Perch hopping Greenies. Yellowhammers, squinty eyed and puffed up feathers. Probably die before anyone bought them

 

Years, I became accustomed to that. It was the way it was. Then, one day ~ and this is the bit I wrote on this site before; I walked into another shop and was blinded by this Goldfinch.

 

He was sat there, in his open sided cage. Cool as a cucumber. His colours were breath taking!

 

That was my first ever view of a genuine, captive bred bird. And, compared to all the Bird Catcher stuff I'd known before? No comparison.

 

Of course, that was all decades ago. But, I still clearly remember that bird. I always thought of him as the pinnacle of what you guys do. And now, you're telling me that your stuff is put in the shade by the wild ones?! Bloody hell!

 

Okay then. Well, here's my response to that:

 

1. I applaud you lads, for your enthusiasm and commitment to continually producing your own, Captive Bred, birds.

 

2. I'd pose the (rhetorical) question; Why would any of you want to put a wild caught bird into your mix? It's like adding polecat blood to a ferret. Why turn the genetic clock back?

 

3. To those who ~ and we all know they're out there, reading this ~ To those who, to this day, insist on catching wild birds and keeping them: Why? They loose condition in captivity and become shadows of their former selves. What's your point ....? Seriously.