Garden CES at Sibthorpe

With the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ affecting bird ringers the same as everyone else, we were only allowed to ring in our gardens until a few days ago. With this in mind, the BTO thought it might put idle hands to work and try Constant Effort Site ringing in ringers' gardens, there’s more about the CES methodology here - the main difference is that under Garden CES food can be put out for the birds.

I have completed two six hour timed ringing sessions so far:

8 May 2020, CES 1
Birds handled (new/re-encounter 14/13): Blackbird 5/3; Chaffinch 1/-; Dunnock –/4; Greenfinch 4/1; House Sparrow 1/3; Reed Bunting 1/-; Robin –/2; Starling 1/-; Whitethroat 1/-.

15 May 2020, CES 2
Birds handled (new/re-encounter 12/10): Blackbird 1/4; Blue Tit 1/1, Chaffinch 3/-; Dunnock 1/1; Goldfinch 2/1; Greenfinch 2/-; House Sparrow -/2; Robin 1/-; Starling 1/1.

That’s 49 adult birds so far, which suggests I should make the minimum of 200 bird handlings over the 12 CES sessions. We suspected breeding Blackbirds were commuting to our feeders from around the village and with 13 different adults so far this seems to be the case. The Reed Bunting was unexpected, though they do breed in the wet ditches nearby, and the Whitethroat had a break from singing 12 hours a day across the road from us.

Images of the Whitethroat and an interesting Greenfinch for folk to muse over . . . . .

Jim