Rushcliffe Country Park, Sunday 20 January

Gary, Tom, David, Duncan, Libby and I made a visit to RCP on Sunday. With snow covering the ground for the last couple of days we were on for a large catch, or so we thought. It did not materialise and it is hard to find a reason why catching rates have dropped significantly since December 2011. We had plans to move one of the feeders but decided against doing it today with the ground being frozen and hard to dig! It was particularly unusual, given the weather conditions, not to catch any Reed Buntings. Also of note is the fact we have only caught 3 Yellowhammers this winter and all have been retraps from previous winters. Where are the 1st winter birds? We finished on 40 birds, 18 of which were retraps. The best of the retraps was a Yellowhammer from 2008 and a new Siskin brought a smile to Duncan's face. The full capture list was (new/retrap): Chaffinch 1/0, Blue Tit 4/4, Great Tit 1/5, Blackbird 5/2, Yellowhammer 0/2, Robin 4/4, Dunnock 0/1, Goldfinch 6/0, Siskin 1/0.

Kev