Sutton Bonington, Sunday 19 November

A glorious, still and frosty morning dawned as we met at Sutton Bonington. Bit of a strange start as Kirsten had trouble locating us and once the gate was open Alex could not get his car to start, so we had to push it on to the campus! Maria, Alex, Sue, Kirsten, Gary and I, along with two guests set 2 extra nets near the pheasant feeder along with the 3 small nets at our feeders.

Things started a little slowly but picked up after the first round and we were pleased to get the first two Yellowhammers of the season plus a Brambling and a couple of Lesser Redpoll.

A few leaves started to fall into the nets as a slight breeze got up towards midday but nothing to interfere with catching. We ended with a catch of 50 including 20 retraps. The catch was made up of (new/retrap): Great Spotted Woodpecker 0/1, Blackbird 1/0, Robin 0/2, Dunnock 3/1, Blue Tit 5/8, Great Tit 1/3, Long-tailed Tit 1/2, Goldcrest 0/1, Chaffinch 12/2, Lesser Redpoll 2/0, Goldfinch 1/0, Brambling 2/0, House Sparrow 1/0, Yellowhammer 2/0.

The oldest retraps were from 2015. There were good numbers of Chaffinch and a few Yellowhammer around again but no winter thrushes were seen or heard.

Kev

 (photos by S. Lakeman)

Lesser Redpoll & Brambling (K. Hemsley)