03/11 Greenham Common Western Enclosure

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure

Session: 03-Nov-2016 07:30 to 10:30hrs

Headlines: A very different session today with little sign of any movement or passage. The small capture of two new birds and five recaptures perhaps heralding that the flow of Goldcrests through the site is stopping. Two of the crest had been ringed yesterday possibly an indication that those captured in recent days intend to winter in the area. We captured part of a small foraging flock consisting mostly of Long-tailed Tits otherwise the capture would probably have been just one. No sign of the Redwing flocks of recent days. There were some winter finches about but they showed little interest in their calls and the few Meadow Pipits over showed only momentary interest. Might try again tomorrow but if we capture more recently ringed birds ringing sessions here will have to be spaced days apart in future. With Gina I cleared the debris from the ground on the line of the nets and did a dry run of erecting the nets around the newly positioned feeders ready for the weekend. There were quite a few finches coming to the feeder particularly Greenfinches so we may do better than expected.

Weather: ground frost, cloudy with some sunny periods, cold

Present: JL, GB

Nets: 48metres in three rides of 18M, 18M, 12M up from 08:00 to 10:00 hrs

Lure (audio): Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Firecrest, Goldcrest, Redwing, Siskin, Redpoll , Meadow Pipit, intermittently.

Capture (New/Recapture) 7 (2/5):

Species New Retrap 1st CY Adult Indit Blue Tit 1   1     Goldcrest 1 2 2     Long-tailed Tit   3     3

Recaptures: (5) all recent except Long-tailed Tit 1y 76d (two Birds) and 57 days
Age Range: all 1st CY or indeterminate

Sightings 26 Species: The Mistle Thrush seen yesterday or another flew over and a Mute Swan circled before flying north. Not much of note today; probably missed a few.