Brambling bonanza

I am working this Sunday so I took today off instead and also because the weather was looking quite good for ringing. John G is also working this weekend and was off work today so we headed out to Longshaw. We had 3 nets up before first light even with a bit of a disaster when one of the shelf strings snapped in one of the two 30ft nets.

The first net round was quite poor despite the near perfect conditions but subsequent rounds were very productive despite some fog rolling in. We were kept quite busy all morning with a total of 98 birds caught including 28 new and 6 retrap Bramblings. This took the number of Bramblings ringed in November and for the year to 108; an exceptional total for recent years. We also caught 22 new Chaffinches and many of these were continental birds judging by their wing lengths.

Ringing totals with retraps in brackets

Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 1 (8)
Brambling 28 (6)
Chaffinch 22 (6)
Dunnock 1 (1)
Goldcrest 2 (1)
Greenfinch 14 (2)
Great Tit 0 (4)
Robin 0 (5)
Totals 69 (+29 retraps)

The dog got a bit bored as we were so busy and took out his frustration on a willow. Perhaps he should have chewed the twig he was tied to.