Interesting bill

This morning I spent four hours out ringing in Wingerworth, Chesterfield with 3 other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group. We were at the new site where, a few weeks ago, we'd ringed 91 birds in one session. This morning's session wasn't quite as busy, but we still managed 45 birds of 8 species (Blue, Great and Coal Tit, Robin, Wren, Chaffinch, Nuthatch and Goldcrest).

The most numerous species were the tits, which included this Coal Tit with an overgrown upper mandible. It was already ringed, so it will be interesting to see if it gets recaught again and to see how we'll it's coping.

Coal Tit

 

Another interesting bird was this Blue Tit which had several brown tail feathers and primaries. I've never seen that before.

 

 



The last bird of the morning was a nice surprise; a Goldcrest. This bird was turned up in a new net, which, until then hadn't caught anything all morning. Just goes to show the power of  a tape lure!

Goldcrest

My totals for today were (new/retrap): Coal Tit 1/1, Blue Tit 4/0, Great Tit 5/1, Dunnock 1/0 and Nuthatch 0/1.

Other birds seen or heard this morning were: Tawny Owl (1 heard), Jay (1 heard), Raven (1 over), Great-spotted Woodpecker (1 heard), Goldfinch (overhead) and  Bullfinch ( 2 over).