With no early sign of it being another Redpoll autumn, just a few visits were made to Ramsdale Golf Centre, at intervals, to check for them. Apart from the odd individual, including one Common Redpoll, only one significant catch was made. This was on 16 November and totalled 84 birds, including 3 controls. The visits also produced a few other birds including 28 Redwing.
The main effort of the Autumn was to set up a new winter feeding site at Trowell. The feeders were put on site on 22 October and the first netting session was on 6 November. It was great to have Sue out with us again, after such a long time away, helping set up the site and on a subsequent visit. We have visited to net at the site every weekend since 6 November, somewhat disappointingly all catches have been low in number and of a limited species range. We have tried sound-luring Redwing which has been very successful at bringing them into the hedges and trees surrounding the site but unfortunately they have been very reluctant to come as low as net level, so few have been caught. Hopefully once we get a few frosts the feeders will bring in more birds.
Towards the end of October we heard that we had been nominated in the Environmental Group/Project of the Year category for the Celebrating Rushcliffe Awards and were shortlisted for the award along with Friends of Rushcliffe Country Park 2022 Bioblitz and FarmEco Community Farm. The awards evening was held on 24 November and was attended by Holly, Mick P and myself. We had provided a video of activities, some photographs and an interview which the team at Rushcliffe Borough Council had turned into a great informational film about the group. This, along with films of all nominees in each category, was shown at the event. It was great to be nominated but on the night we were pipped at the post by the FarmEco Community Farm, congratulations to them.
Kev
