09/02 Greenham Common Feeder

Location: Greenham Common Feeder
Session: 09-Feb-2016 08:00 to 11:45hrs
Headlines: The first really calm day for a while, so another session at the feeders hoping to capture some of the many birds seen when topping-up. It was slow early with some activity but little sign of the big numbers usually seen. A steady trickle of captures followed and as it brightened up it was obvious that the nets were putting birds off; particularly to the ‘open’ feeders. We were however getting more Great Tit captures than  is usual this winter. All were dull plumaged  and mostly female, probably in poor condition. Late in the session more birds arrived and we had one good capture. As we had passed the usual 11:00 cut off processing the fifteen captured and also needed three more to make 50 we delayed taking nets down until 11:30hr, resulting in another six including the control Lesser Redpoll captured at the end of January. The sun made a welcome comeback! Not much prospect of a repeat tomorrow though it will be sunny but windy again according to the forecast.
Weather: Calm, overcast clearing to sunny periods,light breeze and colder later.
Present: JL, IW
Nets: 30 metres: a 12m net to the 'open' feeders and a 12m and 6m to the scrub feeder; up from 08:00 to 11:30hrs
Lure (feeders): Nygerx4, Black Sunflowerx2, Peanut and mixed seed ground-bate.
Capture (New/Recapture) 53 (34/19):

Blue tit 7/3	Dunnock 1/1
Goldfinch 10/4	Great Tit 6/4
Greenfinch 1/0	Lesser Redpoll 0/3
Siskin 9/4

Recaptures: 19
Dunnock 1y 1d         Blue Tit 100dx2        Great Tit 4y 204d, 2y 21d
Goldfinch 1y 194d, 345d, 100d     Siskin 1y 344d
Others Recent
Age Range: all 1st winter except
Adults:            Blue Tit 1,      Dunnock 1,   Goldfinch 4,  Great Tit 3,     Siskin 4
Indeterminate: Dunnock 1

Sightings 25 Species: Eight blackbirds under the feeders when I arrived. As implied above the finch flock came and went several times. Each time we captured the few that did not see the nets. Not much activity of note otherwise apart from a singing woodlark and a lurking kestrel.

Blackbird 8 Blue Tit 15 Bullfinch 2 Carrion Crow 2 Chaffinch 1 Coal Tit 1 Cormorant 2 Dunnock 3 Goldfinch 25 Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 Great Tit 12 Green Woodpecker 1 Greenfinch 20

Kestrel 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 Lesser Redpoll 10 Long-tailed Tit 3 Mallard 2 Red Kite 1 Robin 3 Siskin 26 Song Thrush 1 Woodlark 1 Woodpigeon 15 Wren 1