04/10 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure (wk40)
Session: 04/10/2022 07:45 to 10:50hrs
Notes: weather not conducive to ringing so 15 is a good total. More Blackcap ringed than yesterday with a few Chiffchaff. A nice female Stonechat was a bit of quality, and the Coal Tit was also a smart looking bird; briefly checked that it wasn't of continental origin. The weather for the next day or so look to be very windy so will set up some of the winter feeders instead of ringing.
Present: JL,IW
Weather: overcast with occasional blue, breezy, coolish.
Nets: 48metres 3 Rides, 18M, 18M and 12M up from 08:00 to 10:30hrs
Lures: BC-CC-FC-GC, Thrushes, Yellow-browed Warbler, Reed Bunting, intermittently.

1st winter female Stonechat

Recaptures: (none)

Sightings:  Some Swallow trickled through heading south mid-morning. Soon after a few House Martin also headed south until around 10:00hrs when a large group went south, followed by some smaller groups that were still going through when we left site. The first Redwings of the autumn, mostly single birds flew over and about, several more  unidentified thrushes were not counted but were probably this species. Pheasant is a scarce species at all of my regularly visited sites since the worst of the covid pandemic when few were released for shooting. Many shoots have since stopped for the foreseeable future, some as not being viable. Others are not releasing or limiting releases due to avian flu that is spreading inland unfortunately. It is still mostly confined to waterfowl and seabirds I understand but maybe many smaller bodies go undetected! Most coastal and some inland ringing has been suspended for some time in the north I understand. 

Hope it doesn’t become national.