Busy!

It was a busy old morning yesterday as I was ringing at the Obs on my own and I caught quite well. The morning dawned with seven oktas cloud cover and it was calm.

Almost immediately I had Redwings going over but not in huge numbers. My vis totals, including those for Redwing, included 47 Redwings, two Bramblings, four Lesser Redpolls, 16 Chaffinches, 249 Jackdaws, a Yellow Wagtail (getting late), 28 Greenfinches, 450 Pink-footed Geese, eight Skylarks, two Alba Wags and five Meadow Pipits.

 Greenfinch

 Pink-footed Geese

A Barn Owl was present again this morning, but no Buzzard, and the only other raptor was a single Kestrel. The most interesting grounded migrant of the morning was a Great Spotted Woodpecker perched on top of a lamp standard! Other grounded migrants were four Wrens, a Fieldfare, two Song Thrushes, four Dunnocks, two Blue Tits, a Great Tit, three Blackbirds and two Goldcrests.

 Blackbird

As I said earlier I was busy ringing this morning as I was on my own and I managed to ring 41 birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Dunnock - 3 (1)
Greenfinch - 26
Chaffinch - 2
Blue Tit - 2
Blackbird - 3
Wren - 2
Goldcrest - 1
Great Tit - 1
Robin - (1)

I also controlled a Greenfinch and look forward to details of its origin.

The position of the jet stream is changing this week and we are losing the calming influence of the high pressure, and with it the easterlies and a return to westerlies. With site visits today and time spent setting up one of my feeding stations tomorrow it is going to be later in the week before I am out again.