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Monday 19 January 2015

Brackenhurst, Sunday 18 January

Sunday was almost perfect catching conditions, being dry, bright and frosty. Myself, I would have a slight breeze as I think birds, like Yellowhammers, are more likely to move about. However, after all the high winds this winter I'm not complaining! I was hoping for more Yellowhammers, but we only managed a single retrap. Puzzling as they just weren't about today. Also, just the one Chaffinch was surprising. The cold did bring in more Blackbirds & Robins. Eight retraps of the latter is quite unusual, and maybe shows how reliant they are on known supplementary feeding sites in freezing weather. We thought we'd ringed all the resident Long-tailed Tits, but not so as a flock of 9 unringed birds were processed. Overall, we processed 52 birds with the majority being retraps.

The majority of the retraps were from last winter, bar 2012/13 - Robin (2); 2010/11 - Robin. Captures were (new/retraps) 54(25/29): Blackbird 3/4, Blue Tit 3/3, Chaffinch 0/1, Dunnock 1/2, Goldcrest 1/1, Great Tit 5/8, Long-tailed Tit 9/0, Redwing 2/0, Robin 0/8, Tree Sparrow 1/0, Wren 0/1, Yellowhammer 0/1.

Jim

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