Sutton Bonington, Saturday 9 December

A very cold, calm and clear start to today's session for Jake, Sue, Kirsten, Gary and I. Quite a few birds were around early on but we had only set the main feeder nets because the forecast was for a breezy morning (although this never arrived!) and the pheasant feeder had disappeared anyway.

Catching was steady throughout the first half of the morning and we ended with a catch of 30 including 15 retraps, a little better than the last two weeks. Yellowhammer numbers were up, Chaffinch down and unusually we caught a Starling.

The catch was made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 0/2, Fieldfare 1/0, Redwing 2/0, Robin 2/2, Blue Tit 1/5, Great Tit 0/1, Long-tailed Tit 0/2, Chaffinch 2/1, Greenfinch 1/0, Yellowhammer 4/2, House Sparrow 1/0, Starling 1/0. The oldest retraps were from 2016.

Kev

Sunrise, Ringing station and Starling (S. Lakeman)