Brack, Sun 13 Dec

It was a beautiful, cold and still morning - just what we had been waiting for - and the first round didn't disappoint with 22 birds. 18 of these were Yellowhammers, and 17 were new birds and as each needed one metal and three colour rings, this kept us busy for a while. Credit must be given to a great team, several of whom had never colour-ringed before. Everyone picked up the procedures quickly and the processing was focused and efficient. From time to time folk were dispatched to check nets and collect more birds, but things didn't really slow up until about midday and we finished on 55 birds, 31 of which Yellowhammers. These are our main target species, not only as they are a species of conservation concern, but also because the colour-ringing project will hopefully yield lots of valuable data (and of course it's our logo bird!).

Our youngest recruit, Archie, joined us again and this time he had his own carabina!

His ringing grip is pretty polished now, and what's more, he can take the pain without flinching...

Towards the end of the morning we caught our resident pair of Marsh Tits and had a chance to go through the identification criteria more carefully than last week. The pale base to the upper mandible is obvious in the close-up photo below, along with the pattern of the tail feather tips.

A Goldfinch had been knocking about near the nets in Orwin's field all morning and Archie had said how he'd never had a good view of one and it would be nice to catch it. So we did. After last week's Long-tailed Tit request was satisfied, I'm getting a bit worried that Archie will begin to think we can produce birds to order.

Other birds around included good numbers of Fieldfares, but far fewer Redwings. The two most notable sightings, however, were both waders. A Green Sandpiper flew over calling and Nabegh disturbed a Woodcock near the feeding station on his way out.
Thanks to Libby and Richard for the pics this week.
Pete