Cormorant CVF

This bird was ringed and colour-ringed at Attenborough NR on 23 April 2015. Within a couple of months it had moved to Norfolk where it appears to have resided ever since. There have now been over 40 sightings from places such as Salthouse, Cley, Holt and Overy Marshes. The latest sighting comes from Blakeney Point where it was within a roost of 65 other birds. Thanks to Freya Platts and Edward Stubbings for informing us. 

Broomfield Winter CES Visit 8 - Sunday 8 February

Managed to find a small gap in the seemingly endless rain and completed the final winter CES session at Broomfield today, eleventh visit overall. We set all the usual nets, including the Redwing nets, despite not catching any last week. The catch was again quite low given the relatively calm and overcast conditions. We caught 28 birds throughout the morning. Of these, 12 were retraps, including the regular male Nuthatch and another new male. There were a few Redwing around and we managed to catch 5. A Tawny owl was heard calling again when we arrived on site and 3 Buzzards were soaring overhead at one point. 

Kev

Broomfield Winter CES Visit 7 - Sunday 1 February

This winter seems to have been more difficult than usual to pick the right day to go based on the weather forecasts, and this weekend proved to be no exception. Each of the five forecasts I checked varied on their rain prediction for Saturday morning, but all agreed it would be too breezy. Most suggested Sunday morning would be dry and calm - so we opted for Sunday to carry out our 7th Winter CES visit, and tenth visit overall. 

So it was frustrating to see on Saturday that all the forecasts had got it spectacularly wrong as conditions for mist-netting were good, and then to arrive on site on Sunday in the drizzle! We went ahead and set the feeder and Redwing nets as the drizzle was very light and intermittent but after an hour the rain got heavier, and we had to close the nets for a while. 

When it did stop, we opened the nets again and the rain held off for the rest of the session. The catch was quite low and somewhat surprising as the seed in the feeders had gone down more than usual. We caught 24 birds throughout the morning. Of these, 13 were retraps, including the male Nuthatch that we had originally ringed in the autumn. 

We did not catch any Redwing this week, the first time for some weeks that none were caught, and very few winter thrushes were seen. A Tawny owl was heard calling again when we arrived on site. 

Kev