Just another Hobby?

Pity, there was plenty of room in that nest for at least two more!!

Definitely not, this is one of the rare 2012 vintage Hobbies, of which there appear to be very few. We had 10 sites on the go last year and nearly all of them produced young. This year the weather has played havoc with both the nesting attempts and our efforts to locate them and we are down to just four apparently occupied sites with just 2 nests found so far. This one was in South Shropshire and was ringed yesterday in company with Leo Smith, Josie and Michelle Frater. Later in the day we checked out another site near to a successful 2010 nest where Michelle had seen recent activity but had no joy locating a nest. The day before I had been with Chris Wells to ring the first brood of the year (3 chicks) in a new site he'd just located near Hereford. Unless something else crops up fairly soon that's probably it now. Last year we ringed 19 chicks and 4 adults!

Not often you see the Indian rope trick utilised for ringing activities! The great beauty of this site was that it was within a tolerable walking distance!