Granby, Saturday 25 February

Duncan, Ruth & myself did visit 13 of the winter to Granby yesterday. Weather was frosty early on, stayed mainly cloudy with the breeze building up later. Overall, quite pleasant and topped up my 'farmers' tan. The spring-like weather had the Skylarks & Dunnocks singing aplenty, and we were treated to three Buzzards drifting by.

As per the last visit visit, the mild weather inevitably shaped the make-up and size of the catch, with 70 birds processed. Great & Blue Tits made up three-fifths of the catch, and about a third of them were new birds. Highlights included: two pairs of paired up Long-tailed Tits, our fifth Treecreeper this winter, and the oldest Blue Tit (T513715) that's been handled at the site at 5y 9m 5d which has now been caught 14 times! The only other retrap of note was another Blue Tit from 2008.

Full catch numbers were 35/35 (new/retrap): Dunnock 0/1, Robin 1/0, Blackbird 0/1, Long-tailed Tit 3/1, Blue Tit 3/11, Great Tit 9/19, Treecreeper 1/0, Chaffinch 11/2, Tree Sparrow 0/1, Yellowhammer 6/0.

Jim

 A fairly typical first winter female Yellowhammer (5F) with dark bases to the crown feathers and with well worn tertials and pointed tail. (JL)

 A young male Chaffinch (5M) providing an excellent opportunity to compare adult-type tertials (replaced on left wing - black with a well defined pink-orange fringe) with juvenile tertials (retained on right wing - brown with worn buffy fringe). (JL)