I actually wrote and posted this over on Jims, this morning. Just a knee jerk to get it off my chest. But, as I hope to mention my Bird Ringing adventures a bit more on here, now I have a limited C Permit, I figured this would be a place to start .....
I have just been screaming down the phone, to my Trainer! Absolutely fucking Raging!
Why so, ye might ask? I'll tell ye why. And it won't half help if ye at least know the most basic bird identities.
I'm allowed to trap sparrows and ring them. Right? Now, a sparrow takes a size B ring. Also though, I'm allowed to ring anything else that happens to go into the trap I set for sparrows. And, believe me, just about every other bird that flies takes an A ring. Okay?
So, Chris slung me a shit load of B's, in anticipation of all the sparrows I'll be catching. And, as an after thought, a few A's for those incidentals.
Well, for the past couple of days now, I've had the traps out. And boy, have I caught some birds! Coal tits. Blue tits. Dunnock. Robins. All stuff I've caught before and, frankly, frustrating me. Because a trap with a robin in it can't catch a sparrow, can it?
So, I've spent all morning emptying non targets and ringing them, 'just because'. In fact, I've now used up all my A rings. Put the last one on a rather sweetly trusting little robin. Robin that was hanging about the trap with a chaffinch!
Now, for some reason unknown even to me, I had a hard on for that chaffinch. Only a dowdy female. But, I've never trapped one before and I fancied it. Got the fucking robin instead. There went my last ring.
Looked out. Trap's fired again. Caught another bird. And Oh My Fucking God! It's a fucking stunningly gorgeous full adult, Male chaffinch!!! Beautiful rose breast and that striking blue hood. And I haven't got a ring to fucking put on him!
I've gone ballistic! I've rung Chris and started screaming! LOL! So fucking funny, looking back on it. Me, standing out there with this fucking chaffinch in my hand, ranting and raving to my Trainer as he pisses himself at me! Bastard!
Of course, once he managed to catch his breath, the giggling fucker told me what I knew: Nothing for it but to let the bloody thing go. No point weighing or measuring a bird we can never identify again.
So I did. My first ever self caught, male chaffinch. And I just had to open my fucking hand and watch if fly off. What a pisser!
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