Sutton Bonington, Sunday 4 November

Alex, Mick T, Gary and I made the first visit of the winter to the feeding site today. A few of us had put the feeders up and baited the site a couple of weeks ago. Overcast skies but a stiff southerly breeze blowing today limited us to using only 3 small nets inside the copse. After we had set up the base we looked towards the copse and saw a Red Kite circling above it and then slowly drifting away.

We made the first round and found it very quiet, catching only one Wood Pigeon. Thankfully it picked up as the morning went on. We aren’t usually pleased to find a net full of Blue Tits but having decided to register this site for the Blue Tit national partial moult study they were a welcome find on the next round.

As the birds tailed off a little towards lunch time and a Lesser Redpoll escaped from the top shelf. On the penultimate round we left a Redpoll call mp3 playing and the last round produced 4 of them. We ended with a catch of 36 including 2 retraps, made up of (new/retrap): Green Woodpecker 1/0, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1/0, Wood Pigeon 1/0, Blackbird 1/0, Redwing 1/0, Dunnock 0/1, Blue Tit 18/1, Great Tit 1/0, Coal Tit 2/0, Chaffinch 3/0, Goldfinch 1/0, Lesser Redpoll 4/0. The retraps were both from 2017. A few Fieldfare passed overhead and there were a few Yellowhammer around.

Kev

Green Woodpecker (K. Hemsley)