12/02 Snelsmore Feeder

Location: Snelsmore Common Car Park Feeder
Session: 12-Feb-2019 07:50 to 11:20hrs

Notes: Late arriving, the utility services seem to be trying to cut Snelsmore off from the rest of the world.; traffic lights and road closures on every route up to the car park. Started very slow, just two or three birds for the first few rounds. Although it was cold it was quite spring-like so many were bud-picking in the treetops or singing. A four-year-old Nuthatch is probably the star bird; must be close to a species record for us. It picked up later when mostly Blue Tits arrived and as usual for this site, a good capture of Coal Tits, quite a few new ones. We rarely capture a pair of Marsh Tits in one round. On wing length they were male and female, and we age them as 1st calendar year birds, each had two old greater coverts. Interestingly no pulli Blue Tits captured today. A similar capture to last winter’s matching visit. And finally a star attendee, Mr Smith is mobile again.

Weather: sunny periods, cold, calm
Present: JL, IW, DL, RGS
Nets: 18metres a 6m net each side of feeder up from 08:00 to 11:00hrs
Lure (feeder): black sunflower, niger, fat balls, peanuts

Capture (New/Recapture) 40(24/16)	Matching Visit: 07-Feb-2018 35(21/14)
Species New Rtp 1stCY 2nd+CY BLUTI 7 8 12 3 COATI 7 2 9 GRSWO 1 GRETI 5 3 7 1 LOTTI 2 MARTI 1 1 2 NUTHA 2 1 ROBIN 1 1	Species New Rtp 1stCY 2nd+CY BLUTI 11 6 15 2 COATI 2 4 4 2 DUNNO 1 1 2 GRSWO 1 1 GRETI 5 3 8 ROBIN 1 1

Recaptures: (16) recent except:

BLUTI             22/10/2017, 12/11/2017, 07/03/2018
GRETI            pulli 22/05/2018 box WH13, 29/05/2018 WH05x2 from same brood                                             also recaptured both on the 11/11/2018
NUTHA          18/02/2015

Sightings 20 Species: Ian’s list, not much moving, Raven croaking behind the tree line, very little over-flying today.