Sibthorpe, Saturday 24 March

Despite the very mixed forecast, conditions turned out to be quite manageable for some netting in Jim's garden this morning. Thanks to some tactical preparation the previous evening, nets were unfurled and open soon after first light and the birds started arriving at the feeders straight away.

At this transitional point in the calendar it was interesting to catch some birds coming into breeding condition with several CPs and some developing brood patches (e.g. Dunnocks), whilst others had significant fat deposits and were clearly preparing for migration (e.g. Chaffinch and Blackbird).

Jim had also put up a couple of feeders and nets in a neighbouring garden which was a good, sheltered spot and with the help of a sound lure we caught a few Greenfinches there. Pleased with this, we also reminisced about the days when Greenfinches were your bread-and-butter birds in the garden and hundreds could be processed fairly easily.

In total, we processed 31 birds (21 new/10 retrap), comprising: Great Tit 1/1, Chaffinch 2/0, Blackbird 1/1, Song Thrush 1/0, House Sparrow 2/5, Robin 2/0, Goldfinch 3/0, Dunnock 1/1, Greenfinch 6/1, Starling 2/0, Tree Sparrow 1/0.

The Tree Sparrow was the first to be ringed in the garden since some juvenile birds trapped in June 2016.

Pete

 Starling and Tree Sparrow (PML)