Two Days - Two Feeding Stations

Yesterday I joined Ian at one of his feeding stations and we were accompanied by Jayde and her father Gavin. We had a good mornings ringing and processed 46 new birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Chaffinch - 6
Dunnock - 2 (1)
Great Tit - 11 (1)
Robin - 3
Blue Tit - 11 (2)
Long-tailed Tit - 4
Blackbird - 1
House Sparrow - 5
Greenfinch - 1
Goldfinch - 2

 Dunnock

This morning Ian and I went to our feeding station on Rawcliffe Moss and we were joined by Dave  who rings on Orkney. Dave was looking to gain more experience extracting different species from mist nets. As we put the nets up in the half-light we could hear and see birds moving down the hedge including 4 Yellowhammers and numerous Tree Sparrows.

A Tawny Owl called from 'Tree Sparrow' Wood and I nearly forgot I also had a Barn Owl as I drove on to the site. We had a few raptors this morning including a Merlin mobbing a Peregrine!, Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk that escaped from one of our nets.

There was a passage eastwards of Lapwings totalling 107 and 8 Fieldfares had joined in with a Starling flock. We processed 21 new birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Yellowhammer - 1
Blue Tit - 10 (11)
Great Tit - 2 (3)
Tree Sparrow - 5 (1)
Chaffinch - 2
Starling - 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker - (1)
Robin - (1)

The 'Great Spot' was a female and as is usual for female Great Spots she gave Dave some stick when he was processing her!