Brackenhurst, Sunday 1 November

We got to Brackenhurst at 06:00am this morning in the dark and foggy gloom half expecting to see stragglers going home from the All Hallows celebrations. The autumnal mist hung around ‘til the middle of the day and the sun never really made it until we were packing up.

 

We had a steady catch through the morning of 55 birds with a nice mix of 14 species. Points of note were the high catch, for Orwin's, of eight Goldcrest, which is maybe linked to the high numbers migrating from the continent this autumn? Only two of the Great Tits were birds of the year; suggesting they’ve had a poor breeding season.

 

The species totals were (new/retrap) 55(41/14): Bullfinch 1/0, Blue Tit 5/2, Chaffinch 5/2, Dunnock 2/1, Fieldfare 1/0, Goldcrest 8/0, Great Spotted Woodpecker 0/2, Great Tit 2/6, Long-tailed Tit 9/1, Redwing 2/0, Robin 2/0, Song Thrush 1/0, Wren 2/0, Yellowhammer 1/0. The oldest retraps were  Blue Tit, Chaffinch and Great Tit (2) from winter 2012/13.

 

Jim

 

 Great Spotted Woodpecker & Fieldfare (A. Phillips)