Granby, Sunday 7 December

Saturday would have been the better day to have gone out this weekend, but I wanted to show the Notts Biodiversity Action Group 'scrub-bashing' party what we do. About 20 of them were out to cut re-growth from last winter and do more clearance work on the Bingham side. This is all to encourage the Grizzled Skippers to move along the line from the Bingham Linear Park, where it is close to its northern limit in the UK.

Weather wise, it was windy with a mix of sun, cloud and showers; bit like April really! This affected the catch as not many birds were moving around (particularly Yellowhammers). I suspect they lie low as beating against the wind would burn a lot of calories. Nevertheless we managed 41 birds, which was dominated by tits & Chaffinches. The majority of the retraps were from last winter, bar a Chaffinch from 2012/13, Great Tit and Yellowhammer from 2011/12 and a Blackbird from 2008/09.

Captures were (new/retraps) 41(18/23): Blackbird 0/1, Blue Tit 6/8, Chaffinch 10/2, Dunnock 0/2, Great Tit 0/8, Redwing 1/0, Robin 0/1, Yellowhammer 1/1.

Jim