25/10/13 "THIS BIRD BAG SMELLS LIKE CHRISTMAS''

Finally after many days of catching little or even nothing, the weather gods smiled on us and the wind eased to more mist net friendly levels. Thankfully the birds took this as a hint  to try and migrate too and so with almost all the standard nets open for the first time in quite a while 181 new birds were ringed.  They were joined by 3 foreign controls; a Mealy Redpoll from Norway and 2 more Blue Tits from Falsterbo, Sweden.  The ringing highlight of the day though came in the form of 2 Common Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) caught in the bottom of a net nowhere near the spruce trees they usually frequent, and no we don't know what they were doing there, but who cares!!

Ringing Totals:

Wren 13

Dunnock 3

Robin 12

Blackbird 4

Blackcap 2

Chiffchaff 2

 Goldcrest 28

A soldier ants head impaled in the foot of a first year Goldcrest!!!! (Hugh Hanmer)

 

Coal Tit 1

Blue Tit 14

Great Tit 8

Chaffinch 3

Brambling 3

Greenfinch 2

 Siskin 76

One of the many Siskins caught today, a first year male (Hugh Hanmer)

Common Redpoll 5

Mealy Redpoll 2

 Common Crossbill 2

First year female Common Crossbill, if that's how big the the bill is on a Common Crossbill, I wonder how big it is on a Parrot Crossbill! (Hugh Hanmer) The glue like substance you can see on the birds tail was a resinous sap from the coniferous trees it had been feeding in and made the bird bags smell abnormally pleasant for a change!

First year male Common Crossbill (Hugh Hanmer)

And together, note the different colours of the rumps (Hugh Hanmer)

Yellowhammer 1

Having had our appetites whetted by the two Crossbills we in vain tried to lure some more into the nets after standard and though we didn't manage to get any more we did managed to catch a few more Siskins.

In the evening Pernille arrived to join the GFU team for the weekend to learn how to ring birds. Lets hope the next few days bring her some birds and some more netting conditions!

Thanks for reading as always, Hugh, Jack, Pernille and Rael