Slowing Down

The title isn't a reference to my lack of physical capabilities brought on by middle age, but to the fact that in November our (Fylde Ringing Group) ringing totals slowed down and we only ringed 168 birds during the month. This was down to the appalling weather that we had with wet and windy conditions precluding any decent amount of time for ringing.

Over on the right I have updated the totals for the year and we now stand at 3,536 birds ringed of 66 species. The only addition to the species list in November was a Woodcock that Ian caught by hand after it was trying to push itself through a fence!

 The very Woodcock held by 'yours truly'

As usual I have listed below the top ten 'movers and shakers' for November.

1. Greenfinch - 360 (same position)
2. Chaffinch - 334 (same position)
3. Swallow - 317 (same position)
4. Tree Sparrow - 266 (same position)
5. Blue Tit - 259 (up from 6th)
6. Goldfinch - 253 (down from 5th)
7. Lesser Redpoll - 144 (same position)
8. Great Tit - 143 (same position)
9. Blackbird - 127 (up from 10th)
10. Meadow Pipit - 112 (down from 9th)

I suspect that there will be very little change in December as well. There is a chance that Chaffinch could overtake Greenfinch and possibly Blue Tit & Goldfinch could overtake Tree Sparrow. Other than that I think the positions will remain static.

As I stated previously we only managed to ring 168 birds in November and below I have listed the top 5 totals for the month:

1. Blue Tit - 25
2. Long-tailed Tit - 23
3. Blackbird - 22
4. Chaffinch - 16
5. Goldfinch - 15

Lat Sunday (2nd) Huw, Nigel and I managed to get out ringing at my feeding station. It was a cracking morning weather wise with flat calm conditions and a ground frost. There was 6 oktas cloud cover, so the mist nets were pretty invisible too. We only managed to ring 13 birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Tree Sparrow - 5
Chaffinch - 3
Blue Tit - 3 (11)
Blackbird - 2 (1)
Great Tit - (4)
Robin - (1)
Coal Tit - (1)

To save you doing the maths I'll tell you that we recaptured 18 birds and this is typical of what you see at a feeding station when it is reasonably cold.

As we were putting the nets up a Barn Owl floated across the stubble field and later in the morning two Jays and eight Whooper Swans would fly over the same stubble field. We had two Siskins go south and other than that my note book is blank.