It's always worth going out in the snow and we knew the morning was going to be good when birds started appearing near the feeders in the half light. We only put up the three feeder nets and within 15 minutes of putting them up we had almost 40 birds.
Yellowhammers were caught in particularly good numbers (50) and Blackbirds were also a feature of every round, though many learnt to escape under the nets. A new species for the site was an adult Stock Dove. We finished on 123 birds processed, broken down as follows (new/retrap): Dunnock 5/2, Yellowhammer 40/10, Blackbird 15/4, Robin 4/7, Chaffinch 5/6, Great Spotted Woodpecker 0/1, Blue Tit 2/8, Great Tit 2/6, Reed Bunting 1/0, Stock Dove 1/0, Tree Sparrow 4/0.
All the retraps were from the last two winters with the exception of a Yellowhammer from 2008, and single Chaffinch, Robin & Blue Tit from 2009.
We didn't have time to look out for much else as we were kept so busy, but a few Fieldfares were around and about 20 Lapwing flew over.
Pete
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