No significant improvement.

It was another below par session at Billinge on the 17th and not helped by an unexpectedly foggy start. The bushes were extremely quiet from the off and the fog, which only lifted quite slowly, ensured there was little in the way of any visible migration until I was leaving. Only 1 Chiffchaff was caught which continues the very poor numbers for that species this autumn. It appears that Chiffchaffs returned in much lower numbers than usual (nationally) back in the spring and that is the primary cause of their poor showing this autumn. If that is the case there is unlikely to be any significant improvement in their numbers over the remainder of the autumn.

There was a slight improvement in the number of Goldcrests with a total of 6 ringed but that is still well below the average for the date compared with the previous 4 years. As with Chiffchaffs the cause goes back to much earlier in the year and a low breeding population rather than a particularly poor breeding season. Again there is little prospect of any significant improvement in their numbers through the remainder of September although with Goldcrests there is always the possibility of a influx of migrants from the continent if we get easterly winds (and they have to be the right easterly winds) in early October.

It looks like the exceptionally low numbers of Goldcrests (compared to the previous 4 years) will continue to be a feature of blog posts for the remainder of this month and probably all of next month.  The severe cold of late February and early March appears to be the culprit and seems to have had a much bigger impact on the British breeding population than I had hoped. I thought the impact may not have been too severe as it came quite late in the winter, when day length is longer and gives birds more time for feeding, but it is looking like that was a far too optimistic outlook for this species.

As previously mentioned 'viz' was almost none existent because of the fog and murk but a couple of dozen Meadow Pipits and a Grey Wagtail did push through along with 6 or so House Martins. However, things did start to brighten up towards the end of the session which prompted a few Swallows to start moving along with 3 Siskins.

Ringing totals (retraps in brackets) for 17/09/2018 were: Coal Tit (1); Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 3; Chiffchaff 1; Blackcap 4; Goldcrest 6; Chaffinch 1; Bullfinch 1(1); Yellowhammer 1; Reed Bunting 1.