Better late than never

There was a small arrival of Redwings at Billinge this morning along with a few Song Thrushes. It was fairly slow going but I had around 80 Redwings and 20 Song Thrush in the 4 hours up to 11am. These are the biggest counts of the autumn so far but I had hoped for and expected a lot more. The weather had looked good for a really big arrival of Redwings, especially as they are a little overdue, but the much anticipated mass arrival just didn't materialise. The weather is still quite mild in Scandinavia and further east into Russia so it seems they are under no great pressure to move despite the favourable easterly winds.

It was quite windy this morning but I managed to get a couple of nets up in one of the more sheltered spots. I didn't expect to catch much so I was happy catching 1 Redwing. I also caught 6 Goldcrests (5 new and 1 retrap). This takes the number of Goldcrest ringed at the site this autumn to 201. That may seem a good number but is nothing compared with the number ringed at Flasterbo (southern Sweden) a couple of days ago when a really impressive 1853 were ringed in one session. More information about Flasterbo can be found here, click of the ringing tab to view the daily ringing totals.

Better late than never. This Redwing is the first I have caught this autumn.

Looking good from every angle.

Hopefully I will get to ring quite a few more as the birds arrive over the next few weeks. Both tomorrow and Wednesday are still looking very promising for birds from the east so more could be on their way.