Friday, September 25, 2009

Slowish day (3)

Day 3; 7am 'til 1pm. Started well, finished well - but a bit slow in the middle!

Birds trapped today (last of 3 consecutive days) were (retraps in brkts):
Wood Pigeon juv 1, Robin 1 (1), Lesser 'throat 1, a fine continental specimen on the move, [pics on IRG blog], Blackcap 3, all males, Chiffchaff 1, Blue Tit 5 (4), Gt. Tit 3 (5), Chaffinch 2, Goldfinch 2 (both adults this time).

One of the recaptured Blue Tits turned out to have been ringed in June 2002, making it the ringing group's oldest at (not quite) 7 years 3 months!

Light movement of Mipits and Sky Larks south; DK had a Jay. Best tick - 8th record of Nuthatch, this one calling like mad, from nearby where I had the first record for the park back in August 1991 (also while ringing!)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Slower day (2)

Same routine - without the feeder net. Just 12 birds; 6 new, 6 "old friends".

The newbies were: 1 Goldcrest, 2 Reed Warblers & 3 Chiffchaffs. The first 3 were 'ladies', the rest males. The recaptured birds were a young Treecreeper, a young Song Thrush, a 1 year old male Blackbird, a 2008 Robin and 2 Gt. Tits, one from '08, the other from 2005.

Other birds about - Blackcap (poss 2), prob flyover Siskin, another Song Thrush & a Mipit. Magpie clan present for a while and 6-7 LTT came through a couple of times, sticking to the tree tops. A strong smell of fox again plus a Muntjac today.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Slow day (1)

Ringing from 8 'til 1 produced 28 birds, 10 of them re-traps with only 3 adults (a male Bullfinch and 2 Dunnocks). One of the Dunnocks recaptured was in its 6th year.

Wren - nil, Dunnock (3), Robin 1 (1), Blackbird (1), Blackcap 2, Chiff 1, LTT (1), Blue Tit 2, Gt. Tit 5 (3), Goldfinch 7, Bullfinch (1).

The Wren numbers are well down on last year - which was a bumper one for them. We have now caught 81 new Blackcaps so far this year and 55 new Chiffs, the highest ever. If you exclude pulli ringed in boxes, we have also ringed more new Gt. Tits than ever before. On the other hand, 4 Greenfinches is the lowest (at the moment), but they have been suffering again as they did at the beginning of the 'nineties.

As I was coming in, I saw several Song Thrushes and at a quarter to eight, as I was busy putting a net up, I had a calling Y-b Warbler pass over, moving from one bush top to another [4th for county, 2nd here]. The Goldfinch flock today consisted of 17 birds.