Ringer availability and a rare calm day allowed Kevin, Gary, Duncan & myself to set the nets at the Brack feeders and down in Orwin's on Thursday. Conditions were ideal, that is calm and overcast, but admittedly very mild. Basically, wintering birds are less hungry when it’s mild and therefore lose less weight overnight and visit the feeders less often. And so it proved with only nine birds caught at them. Orwin's produced 16 birds with half those being Redwings responding to the sound lure.
Highlights on a very slow morning were the first Blackcap ringed at Brackenhurst in winter time and the first Coal Tit for four years to the day. There were few birds about, but a skein of 150 Pink-footed Geese heading NW was good to see.
The species totals were (new/retrap) 25(16/9): Blackcap 1/0, Blue Tit 1/2, Chaffinch 2/0, Coal Tit 1/0, Dunnock 0/1, Goldcrest 0/1, Goldfinch 3/0, Great Tit 0/2, Redwing 8/0, Robin 0/3. The oldest retraps were a Robin from 2010 and a 2012 Great Tit.
Jim
What a prilivege to get so close to those amazing birds
ReplyDeleteMeant to reference the 2nd Coal Tit picture to say it had a fault bar, plus there seems to be more of them about this winter.
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