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Saturday 27 August 2011

Whitbread Hollow - Beachy Head

Common Whitethroat

Determining what age a Common Whitethroat is when ringing should be done using a couple of basic subtlties. The first is the eye colour, in an Adult it should be a sandy colour and a darker brown in a juvenile. Pictured above Adult on left and Juv on right.
Common Whitethroat
The other useful tool for determining age is the outer tail feather. In an Adult the tail feather should be pure white and the feather tips are often also tipped white. This can be seen on the left-hand photo. The Juvenile outer most tail feather is buff/dirty white in colour and other tail feathers are not so extensively tipped.


A pretty good morning at the Hollow with a nice mix of autumn migrants with the following caught; Garden Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Common Whitethroat, Grasshopper Warbler, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap.

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