Sunday 12 June 2016

May's Ringing Totals

Over on the right you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for Fylde Ringing Group up until the end of May. We are 135 ahead of where we were this time last year, so that's good. Three new species were ringed for the year during May and these were Garden Warbler, Pied Flycatcher and Nuthatch.

Below you will find as usual the top five ringed for the month of May and the top ten 'movers and shakers' for the year so far.

Top 5 Ringed in May

1. Blue Tit - 55 
2. Great Tit - 53
3. Lesser Redpoll - 51
4. Nuthatch - 16
5. House Sparrow - 12

The Blue Tits, Great Tits and Nuthatches are predominantly pulli and are a result of nest box studies. The Lesser Redpolls ringed this month mainly came from Ian's garden where he was able to 'pull' them down for ringing whilst they were on migration using an MP3 playback of their song.

Top 10 Movers and Shakers

1. Lesser Redpoll - 157 (up from 2nd)
2. Goldfinch - 128 (down from 1st)
3. Blue Tit - 114 (up from 4th)
4. Great Tit - 86 (up from 7th)
5. Chaffinch - 75 (down from 3rd)
6. Siskin - 56 (down from 5th)
7. Meadow Pipit - 53 (down from 6th)
8. Willow Warbler - 28 (same position)
9. Robin - 22 (straight in)
10. Coal Tit - 21 (down from 9th)

I've been struggling to get out birding on my patch this week due to being busy with surveys for work and at weekend checking nest boxes. Last weekend Gail and I wrapped up our nest box scheme on the River Hodder by ringing seven Blue Tit pulli and 36 Pied Flycatcher pulli.

During the week I carried out a few surveys in Cumbria that were pretty quiet and one close to the River Eden east of Penrith was quite good and I recorded three Willow Warblers, 25 Sand Martins, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, two Song Thrushes, three Redstarts, two Reed Buntings, a Stock Dove, four Lesser Redpolls and a Pied Flycatcher.

I've got another busy week work wise so I will struggle to get out birding on the patch again, but at least I will be wandering around in the glorious Cumbrian countryside!

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