Recent Ringing Activity

Holme Pierrepont
20/09/26 - The last trip out before some of us headed south to go ringing in Portugal. Unexpectedly good catch today in good conditions. We finished with 70 birds, though warblers down to just 3 species with 43 Chiffchaffs, 11 Blackcaps and 2 Reed Warblers. The oldest of the few retraps was a Robin from 2023.

08/10/2023 - The last visit to the site for the year produced just 15 birds in good weather conditions. Warblers were down to just 6 Chiffchaffs and a single Blackcap.

Ramsdale Park Golf Club
11/10/26 - The first Autumn visit so we had mp3 sound lures playing Redwing, Redpoll and mixed warblers. Weather conditions were still, but sunny. Clearly the warblers had all departed but we did get the first 2 Redwings of the Autumn and 3 Lesser Redpolls. The rest of the catch of 25 was made up mostly of tits.

18/10/26 - Plenty of Redwing around today and a few Fieldfare. It was bright with a gusting northerly wind but thankfully the nets were sheltered from the wind on the south facing slope. We finished with 39 birds, 16 of them Redwing.

24/10/26 - Managed a trip out in the very small window between storms Austen and Boelo. Mostly overcast conditions with a light south-westerly breeze that slowly increased and rain started about 1100. The site was very quiet today, nowhere near as many winter thrushes around as last week. We ended with just 11 birds that included a Jay, a Bullfinch (uncommon here now) and 4 Redwing. One of the Redwing was a very dark morph probably caused by melanism, I have definitely not seen one like this before. 

Kev

Redpolls, Ramsdale (KJH)

Redwing, Ramsdale (KJH)

Jay, Ramsdale (KJH)

The  following few pictures show the unusually dark Redwing trapped at Ramsdale. We suspect an aberration such as melanism, but it's not impossible that racial variation or even hybridisation may be involved. Comments welcomed. All photos by KJH.