Provisional October Totals

More trick than treat and well down on last year. Some data may be outstanding but totals for the month are well down with 390 new birds ringed in the month compared with 678 last year. This is not a scientific analysis, far from it, but the trends are clear and many species are well. Blue Tit and Great Tit are good examples and are down by about 50% whilst Coal Tit totals have bucked the trend and have almost doubled. This seems to be in line with national trends. Dunnock have shown the most dramatic decline with only 2 ringed in October this year compared with 17 last year.
 
Top 5 species ringed in the month were:
1^st     Greenfinch    74
2^nd    Goldfinch       72
3^rd     Goldcrest      45
4^th     Blue Tit          36
5^th     Great Tit        30
=5^th   Coot              30
 
On a visit to Pennington Flash today I was told a dead Black-headed Gull had been saved for me because it was ringed. It had been picked up last week and left in a bin bag so could have been a bit smelly. It wasn’t too bad and was a first year bird wearing a Danish ring. Not a bad way to end the month.



Not the full number in the photo but no question where it came from.