19/12 Greenham Common 616 Feeder

Location: Greenham Common 616 Feeder

Session: 19-Dec-2015 07:30hrs to 10:30hrs

Weather: Overcast and windy; to windy really and we stopped because of it

Present: JL, IW, DL, JPM

Nets: 120’ a 40’ each side of the main feeders and a 40’ one side of the scrub feeder

Lure (Feeders): Niger x 3, Black Sunflower x 2, Peanut feeder.

Capture (New/Recapture)12:

Blue Tit 1/1	Goldcrest 1/0
Goldfinch 1/0	Great Tit 2/1
Greenfinch 1/0	Lesser Redpoll 3/0
Sparrowhawk 1/0

Recaptures: 2

Blue Tit 4y 132d, Great Tit 272d

Age Range: all 1st winter except

Adults: Blue Tit 1, Great Tit 1, Lesser Redpoll 1 (a bright male) Sparrowhawk 1 (a 2nd winter male)

Sparrowhawk 2nd Winter Male

Notes: The weather conditions were unsuitable really very windy. It was case of as we are here might as well give it a go. The nets pockets were billowing out in the direction of the wind said be the forecasters to be 15mph which is right on the limit for ringing. Few birds were at the feeder, like the other feeders I service since the mild weather there are fewer birds visiting. New for this week is a flock of 14+ redpoll rather than the occasional bird seen this winter until now. Bird could see the moving nets so apart from one or two few were captured; some net rounds had no captures. At 09:15 I noticed something bigger in the bottom shelf and managed to get to the Sparrowhawk before it could escape. This proved to be a nice male with ginger fringes to some of its median covers that showed it to be a 2nd winter bird. We did manage to capture three Lesser Redpoll but most could see the nets and bounced off or flew over. Some that did fall into the net pockets escaped as the wind blew the nets. At 10:00 hrs after a particularly windy blast we took the nets down as even increasing the depth of the net pockets showed little improvement.

Sightings 29 Species The wind and general unseasonal weather conditions makes birding difficult . There are fewer birds around the feeders currently.

Blackbird 4 Black-headed Gull 2 Blue Tit 7 Buzzard 1 Carrion Crow 3 Chaffinch 7 Coal Tit 2 Dunnock 1 Goldcrest 1 Golden Plover 16 Goldfinch 7 Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 Great Tit 5 Green Woodpecker 1 Greenfinch 5

Jackdaw 5 Lesser Black-backed Gull 36 Lesser Redpoll 14 Magpie 4 Mistle Thrush 1 Red Kite 1 Redwing 32 Robin 5 Siskin 2 Song Thrush1 Sparrowhawk 1 Starling 50 Woodpigeon 15 Wren 2