Another very early morning trip to Jasaer to try to ring some migrants turned out to be very profitable. We had one of our best days ever catching birds and ended up with 36 in total although a number were House Sparrows with most females with brood patches indicating breeding has begun. One bird caught was a ringing ‘tick’ for me and was a male White-throated Robin. It was caught with a worm in a spring trap and was a fine male. These birds are not uncommon on passage through the region but are not caught too regularly and fortunately for me Nicole had ringed one before so I got the chance to ring this bird. They appear quite large in the hand and are really beautiful birds and are the sort of birds we were hoping for when setting out to ring at the site. Abdulla came to visit us at the site and his skill with the spring trap is what allowed the bird to be caught. He caught it in his spring trap but I gave him one of my spring traps to see if he could catch anything with it as he is an expert and we are too busy trying to process birds from the mist nets to allow us to try to catch anything with the spring traps. I am looking forward to seeing his results over the next week or so and to see if my trap will work or not. I know one thing for sure, and that is if Abdulla cannot catch anything with it, I certainly will not be able to.
