Sutton Bonington, Sunday 18 November

Duncan, Alex, Mick T and I made the third visit of the winter to the feeding site today. The weather was better than last week in that it did not rain but the breeze was stronger than forecast so a plan to try for Meadow Pipit and Skylark on the field at the side of the feeders was put on hold to start with.

The feeder nets caught steadily all morning not just birds but each leaf falling seemed to be finding the nets again. Mid-morning the breeze seemed to drop a little so we put up a couple of 2-shelf nets with an mp3 lure playing, only to find the breeze pick up again – but we did get 3 Meadow Pipits.

As the breeze continued to pick up we took down after going through another heavy leaf extraction session. Another good catch of 1st winter Blue Tits was made, the data collected contributing to the national partial moult study – so far in just three visits we have caught more 1st winter Blue Tits than in any other complete winter at this site, it must have been a good breeding season.

Unfortunately our suspicions after the summer ringing sessions at Holme Pierrepont that Dunnocks, Robins and Wrens did not fare so well seem to be correct. So far at the feeders we have only caught a couple of Robins, one Dunnock and no Wrens, all of the birds caught being retrap adults from last winter!

We ended with a catch of 53 including 15 retraps, made up of (new/retrap): Great Spotted Woodpecker 3/0, Redwing 1/0, Blackbird 2/0, Robin 0/2, Meadow Pipit 3/0, Goldcrest 1/0, Long-tailed Tit 2/0, Blue Tit 7/11, Great Tit 5/1, Chaffinch 7/1, Goldfinch 1/0, House Sparrow 6/0. The oldest retrap was from 2015. Nice to get 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, that's 4 new birds in 3 visits and a Green the other week as well.

Kev

 Meadow Pipit (K. Hemsley)