Sunday 5 January 2014

Avenue Ringing - 5th January 2014

After a four week break from ringing due to bad weather and Christmas I got out this morning with the group, visiting the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Avenue Washlands reserve near Chesterfield. This is one of our regular sites and today's visit will be the first of many this year I'm sure.

We arrived at 7.45am and during the next three and a half hours we caught and processed 61 birds. The first net round produced a small flock of Long-tailed Tits, most of which had already been ringed by us on previous visits. It's always good to retrap ringed birds, as this helps us learn more about their movements and longevity. Here's a picture of my first bird of 2014- a Long-tailed Tit.

Long-tailed Tit

Throughout the morning we carried on catching a good number of birds of many different species; Blue, Great and Willow Tit, Dunnock, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer, Chaffinch, Bullfinch and this beautiful male Greenfinch (1 of 5 birds).
Male Greenfinch
 
During net rounds we also like to do a bit of birding. Black-headed Gulls were flying over most of the morning along with a Jay, several Blackbirds and Robins. Sighting of the day, however was the small covey of 8/9 Grey Partridges that flew up from the site- a very good "year tick"
 
Year List update:
72 – Willow Tit
73 – Grey Partridge
74 – Reed Bunting
75 – Yellowhammer

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