Monday 9 July 2012

Hobnobbing!

No bird related news to talk of with the miserable weather continuing, so i will have to be content with my latest visit to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix! Like last year i was fortunate enough to hang out in the GP2/GP3 paddock with Arden International. A long day on Saturday (7.30am-11pm) but good results kept the spirits high. Easily the star attraction this season in GP2 and currently leading the championship is the Brazilian Luiz Razia, fortunately racing at Arden. He had an excellent weekend with a 5th placed finish on Saturday in the feature race and 1st place on Sunday in the sprint race.

Razia's team mate at Arden is young Swiss driver Simon Trummer who also had an excellent weekend although the results didn't quite show that. 15th on Saturday and 11th on Sunday.

 A very happy Luiz Razia retuning to the paddock after his sprint race victory on Sunday.

A rather disappointed looking Davide Valsecchi returning to the paddock after finishing 2nd to Luiz in Sundays sprint race.


The young up-and-comers (18-19yo) all race in the GP3 series. Current championship leader also with MW Arden is Mitch Evans who had an excellent weekend with a 2nd on Saturday and 11th on Sunday.

Mitch's teammate Matias Laine had a mixed weekend with a 9th and 18th but comfortably consolidates his 5th place in the championship.

More to come from the Porsche Supercup, the F1 Classics and of course the GP.

Monday 2 July 2012

Tiny Terns

After what seemed like an age not doing any ringing we fianlly got a session at Woolston on Saturday morning. The obligitory early start and we were furling nets as quickly as we put them up due to a heavy downpour. In spite of the brief interuption a decent session was had, out first Garden Warbler of the year was caught amongst the usual suspects. Again tho another session with no Sedge Warblers, very worrying.
Taking advantage of a break in the seemingly endless supply of wet weather Stephen Menzie and i joined Prof David Norman at the Little Tern colony at Gronant, North Wales yesterday. Little Terns require a schedule 1 license in order to enter, ring and photograph the colony, so this provided us with a quite unique experience. The colony holds over 400 birds with plenty of active nests, all nests are marked with a coloured peg for ease of monitoring by the wardens and volunteers that watch over the colony day and night. In total 14 chicks were rung with many more no doubt hiding in the dune system out of the ever present wind.

Little Tern colony and dunes
Typical Little Tern scrape decorated with broken shells
1 day old Little Tern
Little Tern family
Obviously the obligitory Little Tern posing flight shots