Finally, the rain has stopped and the wind has dropped and I could open the nets in my garden for a few hours this morning! Over the last week-and-a-half I have been hugely encouraged by the number of Greenfinch we have seen visiting the feeders: on one good day we had seven adult males, two females and two juveniles all together after the sunflower hearts. Similarly, we have had a decent throughput of Goldfinch over the same period. I was hopeful that we might catch a few of them this morning. Needless to say none, nil, nada: until I shut the nets at 11:30, whereupon a couple of Goldfinch flew in whilst I was still storm guying the nets. Such is life!
Totally dependable: Blue Tits arrived in reasonable numbers from the off and I had a steady trickle of birds throughout the morning, with some nice surprises. The first was my first juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker of the year:
More Blue Tits and a couple of Great Tit and then this:
This was the first of two, and I was delighted to catch them, after years of providing them with fat balls it was the least they could do. I have done plenty of juveniles, but only two adults previously. The catch continued and at about 10:00 this blundered into one of the nets:
They are remarkably strong birds: a real handful. This was an adult female clearly still in breeding condition from the condition of her brood patch.
Then over the next 45 minutes I caught 5 Starlings: three in my nets and two walked into my Potter traps! It was turning into a decent session, with good birds interspersed with commoner species. Finally, just about the last bird out of the net was this scruffy little thing:
My second juvenile Goldcrest of the year but the first in my garden. For some reason they are very regular visitors to my patch.
The list for the morning was: Woodpigeon 1; Great Spotted Woodpecker [1]; Jackdaw 2; Blue Tit [10](2); Great Tit [3]; Dunnock [1]; Robin [1]; Blackbird (1); Goldcrest [1]; Starling [5]. Totals: 3 adults ringed from 2 species, 22 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 3 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 28 birds processed from 10 species.
One of the benefits of ringing at home is having food, drink and amenities on tap. Such was the way this morning went that it was 9:30 before I got breakfast! It was a good session, better than most of my external site sessions for a month or so, and some excellent birds in the catch. I had to shut the nets at 11:30 to get into Swindon to collect my son from the train station. Pleasingly, as I started to do so the wind got up, which would have forced me to close them regardless of any other calls on my time.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 