Linacre WeBS - 21st October 2018

Yesterday morning Luke and I were down at Linacre to carry out this month's WeBS count. We had a very successful few hours recording our first Teal (2 female types) and Wigeon (1 female type) of 2018.

Teal

Wigeon

In addition, we also had the highest count of Mandarin (113) since October 2016, when 117 were counted, 20 Black-headed Gulls, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Cormorants, 4 Great-crested Grebes, 2 Little Grebes, 76 Mallards, 35 Tufted Ducks, 11 Moorhens, 6 Coots and a Kingfisher.

Other birds seen on site included a single Goldcrest, Siskin (heard), Robin, Chaffinch, Wren, Blackbird, Redwing (4 over) and 2 Ravens.

There were lots of fungi all around the site, including this lovely collection of Fly Agaric.

Fly Agaric

Linacre Ringing - 20th October 2018

This month's ringing session at Linacre started at 6:45am, just before it got light, so that we could set the nets up and ready to try and catch the first Redwings of the autumn/winter period. We were lucky and managed to catch 2 new birds (both adults).

Redwing

We also managed to catch a Brambling (the first to be ringed at Linacre). The bird was a very smart male bird, born this year.

Brambling

The other, slightly different bird was a Coal Tit that was noticeable greyer than our usual birds. We identified this a "continental type" bird, i.e. most likely from mainland Europe! Here's a picture showing the "continental type" (right hand bird) along side a regular bird.

Coal Tits

Finally, we also caught and ringed 2 Greenfinch, another new species for Linacre.

Birds ringed (new/retrap): Wren 3/0, Dunnock 1/0, Redwing 2/0, Goldcrest 4/0, Coal Tit 7/0, Blue Tit 14/6, Great Tit 12/0, Nuthatch 1/0, Chaffinch 1/0, Brambling 1/0, Greenfinch 2/0 and Goldfinch 1/0.

Whilst on site we also noted 3 flocks of Fieldfare (10, 20 and 20) flying over, a lovely skein of approximately 100 Pink-footed Geese flying east and some very vocal (possibly 4) Tawny Owls.