Brackenhurst, Friday 2 November

We had the first session of the winter at the Brackenhurst feeders. John Clark, Tina, Gary & myself made up the team. As we had a few folks we also set 4 nets in Orwin's plantation. Initially, we were quite sheltered from the south-westerly winds, but as the morning progressed and the wind turned round to the west it affected the nets and we got a fair bit of leaf extraction practice! We had a busy start with 20 birds (including the Long-tailed Tit flock) in the Orwin's nets first thing, then it was steady throughout the morning. The total catch of 82 birds was a good start to the winter.

We handled 28 Great Tits of which 70% were adults. This underlines our perception that they had a poor breeding season. This was easily the biggest ever single day catch of this species at the site. Another highlight was catching a Jay in Orwin's, which is a first for Brackenhurst. Of the 7 retraps, the most notable birds were a Blue Tit & Chaffinch which were both originally ringed on 9 February 2008 at the second ever ringing session at the site.

Overall, we processed 82 birds made up of (75 new/7 retraps): Wren 1/0, Dunnock 2/0, Robin 1/0, Blackbird 3/0, Goldcrest 3/0, Long-tailed Tit 12/0, Blue Tit 8/1, Great Tit 24/4, Jay 1/0, Tree Sparrow 5/0, Chaffinch 16/2.

Jim