First outing in a while.

I obviously I haven't posted anything on the blog for a couple of months and that has been due to a number of factors, not least two more deaths in the family, but I have been keeping my hand in by doing a bit of ringing in the garden and keeping a look out for ringed gulls on Orrell Water Park.

However, I started baiting the farmland ringing site a Crawford a couple of weeks ago and decided to make my first ringing visit this morning. I knew there were plenty of birds coming to the feeders from the numbers I had seen on my last visit to top them up and by the rate the seed was being eaten so I only set up one 18m net.

The catching rate was brisk, as can be the case when you haven't ringed at a site for some time, and 18 birds were caught within 20 minutes of the net going up. The catching rate remained fairly brisk despite a bit of a breeze developing and a total of 50 birds were caught in a little over two hours. Not bad going for my first ringing session away from the garden this year.

This looks like a fairly standard male Goldfinch from this angle.

However, its chin was pure white and bisected the red bib.

This patch of white feathers wasn't quite symmetrical but certainly made for an interesting looking bird

Only 2 Tree Sparrows were caught but there was a flock of about 15 feeding near the net and more are likely to be caught on subsequent visits.

Ringing totals for 18/02/2019 were: Blue Tit 8; Great Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 2; Song Thrush 1; Robin 3; House Sparrow 1; Tree Sparrow 2; Dunnock 6; Chaffinch 2; Goldfinch 23.