More Goldies and Golden Oldies

The south easterly airflow has been bringing a variety of scarcities and rarities to coastal sites around the country for about week now so my birding efforts will seem pretty mundane by comparison. Work and the legacy of the burglary have limited my ringing to an evening visit to the site at Longshaw and a couple of sessions in the garden.

The evening visit to Longshaw on 24/09/13 looked like being a complete waste of time with the bushes being largely devoid of birds. As a last gasp I played Swallow on the MP3 player and managed to attract around 30 Swallows of which 10 found their way into the net. These are likely to be the last Swallows I will ring this autumn as most will have left the country by now.

A short ringing session in the garden on 28/09/13 was far more productive with 30 birds caught including 23 new Goldfinches. Another ringing session in the garden this morning (02/10/13) resulted in 41 birds being caught including 25 new Goldfinches and a rarity in the form of a House Sparrow. These catches have taken the total number of Goldies ringed in the garden to 132 in just under 3 weeks.
 


This was one of only two adult Goldfinches caught today and was just finishing its moult.



This House Sparrow had one white primary but more significantly was only
 the third to be caught in the garden this year. Their decline seems to be
continuing at quite a pace.

You may be wondering if the Golden Oldies in the post title refers to retrap Goldfinches that have reached a significant age, well it isn't as adult Goldies and retraps have been few and far between. No, last night I went watching Fleetwood Mac playing in Manchester and what a treat it was. The performance was great and in birding terms it was a tick that was equivalent to a BBRC rarity and a good one at that.