It was disappointing to arrive on site and find the wire holding up the six hanging feeders had snapped since last weekend and all the small hanging feeders were on the ground, thankfully the large feeders were still in place. Not ideal weather conditions for our first visit of the winter either, breezy and full sun. We set the standard feeder nets plus some in the sports fields and the garden. We tried playing Redwing calls and caught a few then switched one speaker to Redpoll but attracted nothing. The new feeder with peanuts in may have been the reason we caught 2 Nuthatch.
The catch rate dropped off quickly as the breeze picked up, the sun got higher and the nets started to fill with leaves. There were plenty of birds around generally but noticeably low numbers of Redwing and just one small party of Fieldfare passed overhead. Other birds overhead were 100 Pink-Footed Geese heading northeast, a small party of Ring-necked Parakeets and a Red Kite which was either trailing some prey from its talons or had jesses on.
We ended on 42 birds but only 16 came from the feeder nets, mostly tits. We had only 8 different species and just 2 birds recaptured from last winter's ringing effort. The catch comprised: Blue Tit 16, Great Tit 10, Robin 2, Chaffinch 1, Dunnock 4, Redwing 5, Blackbird 2, Nuthatch 2.
Interestingly on the first visit here in 2023, 67% of the tits caught were juveniles, in 2024 (a poor breeding season) 59% were juveniles and today 100% were juveniles.
Kev
