Brackenhurst, Tuesday 29 November

Duncan and I, and new ringers Erin & Hannah, braved the first decent frost of the winter at Brackenhurst today, after first needing Simon’s help to check through Equine’s new Checkpoint Charlie (a cold war joke there geddit?).

We processed 43 birds, 29 of which were caught before 9:00am. The cold bought in some Yellowhammers and thrushes first thing. The star bird, by a country mile, was a young Mistle Thrush. Up to 2015, only 291 have ever been ringed in Nottinghamshire.

The oldest retraps were a Robin and Great Tit from 2013. Again, tit numbers were down. It was surprising we only caught adult Robins, but they do seem to turn up on cold mornings when maybe are looking for a sure source of food?

Totals as follows (new/retrap): Dunnock 1/1, Robin 0/4, Blackbird 6/0, Redwing 3/0, Mistle Thrush 1/0, Blue Tit 2/0, Great Tit 0/2, House Sparrow 3/0, Chaffinch 6/5, Yellowhammer 5/4.

Jim