17/11/13: Head count of 20.

A misty murky morning gave way to a plain old murky afternoon and ideal conditions for mist-netting. This tempted me to put a net up after lunch to try and catch a few more of the garden Goldfinches. I didn't have long to wait before the first birds were caught and I was kept very busy for the rest of the afternoon; recording plumage details and taking photographs of the succession of birds caught.

By the end of the afternoon I had caught 17 new and 3 retrap Goldfinches and a couple of Collared Doves for good measure. This brought the total number of Goldfinches ringed this weekend to 31 and the total for the autumn to 313, not a bad total given the size of my garden. Hopefully the number of birds ringed will produce a few recoveries in due course but the photographs and plumage descriptions are the real prize..

Side profiles of the heads of the 20 Goldfinches caught this afternoon.
Photos are also taken of at least 4 other parts of the plumage of each bird.