What's The Word?

I haven't been able to do what I call any 'proper' birding this week although I have been out as usual feeding my farmland birds. I made two visits in the week to the moss and this yielded 60 Fieldfares, 3 Yellowhammers, 23 Chaffinch, 215 Tree Sparrows, 2 Corn Buntings, 2 Buzzards, 2 Grey Partridge and the regular female Hen Harrier giving me stonking views as she sailed past close by!

Yesterday I called at a friends farm near Nateby to have a look on their flood and they were keen to show me some of the latest conservation work they had completed and to seek my advice on some practical habitat management matters. The flood looked looked good and held 3 Shovelers, 70 Teal and 120 Curlew.

They had put some more small boxes up and Will from our group had put up a Barn Owl box for them and left them with a couple of Kestrel boxes. I look forward to checking the boxes and ringing the pulli later in the spring/summer.

We received details of some recoveries from the BTO in the week and these included a Lesser Redpoll that Craig ringed at the 'obs' on 10th April 2011 that was controlled at Icklesham in East Sussex 418 km to the southeast on 19th October 2011. See Google Earth image below.

When we ringed it in the spring it would have been on migration heading north to breeding grounds further north in the UK and in the autumn when it was trapped at Icklesham it was perhaps going to winter in that area or hop across the English Channel to winter in France, Belgium or western Germany.

 Lesser Redpoll

The forecast for the weekend is a bit of a 'mixed bag' but nevertheless I will be out birding weather permitting. Incidentally I have had my moth trap out a couple of evenings this week with no luck, so I have yet to catch my first moth for 2012!