Grey Morning

Yesterday morning Huw and I had a ringing session at the feeding station. We just had one okta cloud cover and the wind was northwesterly anywhere between zero and 5 - 10 mph. We put the usual nets up at the feeding station and an additional net hoping to target some Wagtails.

The targeting of Wagtails worked in as much as we ringed three Grey Wagtails, but the Pieds weren't interested in investigating the MP3 playing songs and calls back to them.

 Grey Wagtail

We processed 29 new birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Blackbird - 3 (including what looked like two continental male types)
Greenfinch - 1
Yellowhammer - 1
Coal Tit - 1
Robin - 2
Blue Tit - 5 (16)
Tree Sparrow - 6 (1)
Great Tit - 3 (1)
Chaffinch - 4 (including a continental male; long wing length)
Grey Wagtail - 3

(Gwyn - if you're reading this I haven't mentioned the Jay that Huw let go!!!)

 Tree Sparrow

The usual caveat applies to birding records whilst ringing and all we mustered were 830 Pink-footed Geese, four Corn Buntings, 100 Woodpigeons, eight Whooper Swans, two Jays and two Buzzards. On my way home I called in at the flood and there were still two Green Sandpipers, but Redshanks had increased to 17.