Brackenhurst, Sunday 9 March

We met at 06.30 on Sunday morning at the usual place. The team was Kev, Alex, Tom, Sue, Pete S and myself and we were joined soon after putting nets up by Rebecca to carry on her study of feather mites on Yellowhammers. Only the feeder nets were erected as no birds coud be seen in Orwin's and the nets in there have produced very few birds during the last few visits.

The weather was very mild and a little windy but we hoped for a good catch. The final score was 47 birds caught with 25 new and 22 retraps. A Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Kestrel helped to make it an interesting morning.

Final totals were (new/retrap): Yellowhammer 15/10, Great Tit 2/8, Chaffinch 2/1, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1/0, Dunnock 2/2, Blue Tit 2/1 and Kestrel 1/0.

Other birds of note were a Peregrine that Alex found flying over, at least 3 Buzzards and a Sparrowhawk.

Gary

Granby, Sunday 2 March

A more than stiff breeze greeted the five of us when we met at Granby at 06.30 on Sunday morning, so hoping for some shelter in the railway cutting we put up the usual nets. What we had not planned on was bird scarer positioned by the local farmer in the field only a few metres behind the nets. With two blasts every 20 minutes or so we knew it was going to be one of those mornings, but hoped for some sort of catch.

The team was Jim, Kev, Duncan, Nick and myself. It was a disappointing catch with only 32 birds handled and only 9 of those were new birds. The breaksown was as follows (new/retrap): Yellowhammer 2/1, Great Tit 1/13, Blue Tit 4/6, Dunnock 2/1, Chaffinch 1/0 and Robin 0/1.

Only other birds of note were the Buzzards overhead.

Gary