A very busy morning!

A break in the wet and windy weather meant that I was able to get out ringing on Sunday with 3 other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group. We met up at the private garden site in Wingerworth at 7.15am, and, in a non-stop session, we caught and ringed 115 birds of 13 species.

When we arrived, the homeowners told us that they'd had good numbers of both Siskin and Lesser Redpoll visiting the garden feeders during the week. The session started very well, and over the course of the morning, we caught and processed 11 Siskins (9 new and 2 retraps/controls), and 12 Lesser Redpolls (all new birds). One of the ringed Siskins was a bird that we'd caught at this site back in September 2015 for the first time (see post here). We're still waiting for details of the other ringed bird. Here's a picture of a male Siskin feeding in my garden from December.

Siskin

Other birds ringed on Sunday were (new/retrap): Goldfinch 5/0, Great Tit 12/6, Blue Tit 24/7, Long-tailed Tit 9/0, Coal Tit 3/1, Blackbird 4/0, Dunnock 0/3, Nuthatch 1/2, Goldcrest 1/0, Chaffinch 4/0, and Robin 7/3.