Thursday 20 October 2011

Raining Greenfinch

It was also raining the usual 'wet stuff' when I was heading to the obs this morning. In fact when I got there I had to sit in my car for five minutes until it stopped before I could put the nets up. I was on my own this morning, so I only put three nets up, but that was plenty as I became very busy! At first light the wind was southerly, perhaps just about 5 mph with virtually full cloud cover, but by the end of the morning the skies had cleared an the wind had swung round to a 10-15 mph NNW.

I ringed 73 birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Wren - 2
Sparrowhawk - 1st wint. female
Dunnock - 1
Meadow Pipit - 5
Song Thrush - 3
Greenfinch - 61
Robin - (1)

I also controlled two Greenfinch; TR20075 and TR90261 anyone?

 Greenfinch

There was some vis this morning, but I was so busy ringing that it was virtually impossible to count anything. So the following totals are huge under estimates for certain species: 2 Redwings, 3 Song Thrush, 5 Bramblings, 27 Chaffinch, 19 Meadow Pipits, 2 Fieldfares, 3 Alba Wags, 5 Goldfinch, 3 Grey Wagtails, Reed Bunting, Siskin, 3 Skylarks and 2 Rock Pipits.

Other than the vis I had 570 Pink-footed Geese dropping onto the farm across the road to feed. The weather is looking a bit mixed over the next few days and I have just been pleasantly surprised to see that there might be a window on Sunday morning for some more ringing and vis migging. Fingers crossed!

2 comments:

Pete Marsh said...

Not ours, Seamus - we have had NO controls from over 400 caught since the end of July.........but they are ringing a lot on Walney - might be worth e-mailing Colin

Regards

Pete

The Hairy Birder said...

Thanks Pete; will do.