Saturday 27 October 2012

Christmas is coming

I went up to Haigh this morning as I have been baiting the site all week and it also offered the best chance of shelter from the cold northerly wind. It felt more like winter than late October with a very sharp frost. I soon regretted wearing wellies with thin socks as I quickly lost the circulation in my toes; very painful.

I put up a 60ft and 30ft net in the usual dog leg and also set up 3 MP3 lures. In general the catching rate was what you might call steady all morning but there were far fewer Chaffinches than expected given the habitat. The MP3 lures added 8 Goldcrests and 4 Lesser Redpolls to the catch and possibly helped the Greenfinch totals too.

Robin (Erithacus rubecula)
Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)
Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)
 
Visible migration was dominated by Pink-footed Geese with at least 750 birds in 5 skeins flying south-east. At least 4 other skeins were heard and not seen so the total could have easily exceeded 1,000. Around 80 Redwings were seen flying west and 3 Fieldfares flew north. Only 6 Redpolls were recorded, 4 of which were caught and a group of 3 Siskins flew north.

Ringing totals were (recaptures in brackets):

Greenfinch 28 (1)
Goldcrest 8
Lesser Redpoll 4
Goldfinch 1
Chaffinch 7 (1)
Bullfinch 2 (1)
Great Tit 13 (1)
Blue Tit 7 (2)
Coal Tit 1 (3)
Robin 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1
Dunnock (1)
Totals 73 new birds (+10 retraps)


Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)
After returning home and lunch I walked across the road to Orrell Water Park to check out the Black-headed Gulls for rings/darvics. I took the big camera and long lens so I could photograph any ringed birds. The only ringed Black-headed Gull was an adult wearing a chunky foreign type ring. I managed to take enough photos to get the full number and address which showed it was ringed in Germany. This is the first German Black-headed Gull I have controlled.
 
German ringed Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) photographed Orrell Water Park 27.10.12
 

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