Brackenhurst, Wednesday 16 February

I must admit I'd forgotten this date was down for a ringing demonstration with the NTU students. However, in the event we'd picked a good day with cloudy, calm weather, and the students generously hauled themselves out of bed to come and see what we were up to. As it was only Andrew, Duncan and meself we just focused on the three feeder nets, which was enough as we'd processed 99 birds by early afternoon. It was like business as usual, bird wise, in that most of the tits were retraps, nearly half the captures were Yellowhammers, and Blackbirds and Chaffinches made a reappearance. Probably the highlight for the watchers was the new Great Spotted Woodpecker. There were three of them flying around, drumming and squabbling and another escaped the net. Plenty of birds were singing and it felt springlike for a while. Total captures were 99 (42 new / 57 retraps): Great Spotted Woodpecker 1/0, Blackbird 2/3, Dunnock 2/8, Wren 1/0, Robin 1/3, Great Tit 3/11, Blue Tit 4/8, Chaffinch 5/1, Reed Bunting 1/1, Yellowhammer 23/21. For lack of time, we only managed to colour ring five Yellowhammers.
Jim