18/11 Greenham Common Estovers Feeder

Location: Greenham Common Estovers Feeder
Session: 18-Nov-2018 0745 to 11:30hrs

Notes: A very pleasant ringing session today with a steady flow of birds throughout. At last we manage to capture two Redwings thanks to DL’s net and lure. Unfortunately, many of the Redwings stayed in the tops of the surrounding scrub and didn’t venture any lower. Some droppers on the niger feeders fooled the Goldfinches and we captured a good proportion of the flock. The difference between this session and last winter matching equivalent is the number of tits visiting. There are usually good numbers around the feeder when I top them up. Today for some reason few came while the nets were up. The usual two Marsh Tits for example didn’t start calling until just before nets down. Once the nets are down the birds often appear in numbers but not this time. After packing the car, a return to top up the feeders found the site all but deserted.

Weather: bright sunny, cool, calm, breezy late in session
Present: JL, IW, DL
Nets: 74metres in 6 rides: 12m,12, 10m around feeder,18m in scrub to the east and 12m,10m in gorse scrub to the west up from 08:00 to 11:00hrs
Lure (feeder): niger, niger, black sunflower, peanut, black sunflower

.         (audio): redwing to east scrub net

Capture (New/Recapture) 49(43/06)	Matching Visit: 19-Nov-2017 67(51/16)
Species New Rtp 1stCY 2nd+CY BLUTI 6 3 8 1 BULLF 1 1 GOLDC 1 1 2 GOLDF 18 2 18 2 GRETI 7 5 2 GREFI 7 5 2 REDWI 2 2 WREN 1 1	Species New Rtp 1stCY 2nd+CY BLUTI 11 8 18 1 COATI 3 5 8 DUNNO 1 1 GOLDF 15 10 5 GRETI 6 2 4 4 GREFI 5 4 MARTI 1 1 REDWI 3 3 ROBIN 3 3 SONTH 2 2 WREN 2 2

Recaptures: (06) all recent except a Blue Tit ringed 07/02/2016

Sightings 30 Species: Ian’s list, with three of us it was not practical for Ian to concentrate on observing so the list is probably a bit thinner than it might have been. We heard the Golden Plover but in the middle of processing birds we were unable to find them to count.