Back at Harewood and the possibility of Red-Necked Phalarope!

The bird garden's Guinea Fowl enjoying the benches.

 So last weekend was my first weekend back at Harewood House. I had been looking forward to getting back all summer. Just being outside, mixing with the public and being hands on with the birds is a fantastic way to spend a day. Throw that in with the friendly, welcoming staff that work there and it makes it a really enjoyable experience.

So the day involved just the normal jobs. Feeding, cleaning the water, washing the food dishes, and so on. While doing the rounds of the pens I ran into a little hedgehog stumbling around. I presume he must be hungry or suffering some form of illness as hedgehogs shouldn't be as active as he was being during late morning. But he was happy for me to get close enough to take some really good pictures with my phone before I left him to go about his business.

In terms of University work, it's about time I started work on my final year project. I have over 1 million pieces of data in a database that all of my ringing group (Sorby Breck) have compiled over the years and I am very greatful for them letting me use it. Unfortunately the daunting size of this data is making it difficult for me to be able to prise out any specific questions that I want to answer. I'm looking to focus on the timings of moult in various species and seeing if that is affected by weight or climate. This has been made all the more difficult by the fact that I can't find anyone before me who has used the BTO codes in this kind of scientific study. But I'll get there eventually!

I'll finish on two things... Today there has been a Red Necked Phalarope present most of the day at the local RSPB reserve Fairburn Ings. Lectures today stopped me visiting and I won't be able to visit tomorrow due to volunteering. However if the birding gods keep the Phalarope around till Sunday, I'll be straight down to try and see the first one at Fairburn since 1976 and tick off a lifer for me.

And finally here is a picture of some feathers collected from some of the aviaries at Harewood and stuck on my wall. See if you can guess what they are...