31/10 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure (wk44)
Session: 31/10/2023 07:45 to 10:45hrs

Notes: A latish Chiffchaff and the eighth Firecrest of the year was the main interest today, with two Blue Tits and seven Goldcrest. This last species usually dominate the totals at this time of year and are probably of continental origin. A Goldcrest recovery here 02/11/2016 had been ringed 04/10/2016 in southern Norway.  Fledged spring 2016, weighing around that of a 50p, it headed for the Norwegian coast, crossed the North Sea, probably making landfall somewhere between Spurn Point near Hull and the north Norfolk coast, travelled from there to be recovered at Greenham Common - 29 days after it was ringed, amazing. Wonder if the Firecrest that was with today’s Goldcrest also came from Europe? Ringing at the Western Enclosure becomes a bit hit and miss once we reach mid-October onwards and from the weather forecast today it looks like this will be the last and only session possible for week 44. We will continue regularly ringing here up to the end of week 45 at least before giving the three bird feeders elsewhere priority.

Present: JL,IW
Weather: cloud, misty, some sunny periods, calm breezy late in session, cold.
Nets: 48metres 3 Rides, 18M, 18M and 12M up from 08:00 to 10:30hrs.
Lures:  audio (BC-CC-GC-FC), (YB-FC-GC-RE)(LR-MP-BL), (FF-RE), intermittently.

Recaptures: (00)

Sightings: Haven’t seen Egyptian Goose fly over here for a while. The count today is interesting for what we didn’t see, no Blackbird or Goldfinch out on the heath for a start. Two of the three Bullfinches dropped down into the trees from quite high up and might have been winter migrants. The are few winter thrushes about, apart from couple of weeks ago when there was a significant Redwing arrival, we’ve not seen any significant flocks since. The few Fieldfare seen so far this winter have been the odd bird or two with the Redwings.