Wednesday 10 December 2014

6th and 9th December

With everybody either shopping or not available on Saturday it was down to Mel and myself to wave the flag at Stanford this week and what a flag it was. With nets set before dawn we were hoping for a decent catch of Thrushes as the temp was -2.5c. The first round produced a brilliant 75 Redwing but a descending hoar frost then just about put the mockers on the rest of the morning. Fortunately the temperature did rise enough to melt the frost and allow us to catch a few more birds and we ended up with 95 new plus 3 retraps. Of these, 86 were Redwing - our best single day catch since 2010.

A late decision to go out ringing today meant nobody was available to help so off I went at silly o'clock to get the nets up before dawn. Mission accomplished it was soon time for the first net round. I was hoping for a good catch of Redwing again and I was not disappointed with 55 in the first round. Brilliant !!!! The rest of the morning continued with a steady trickle of birds. By 11 o'clock the wind had got up and was quite strong so I decided to take the nets down and ring the last few birds. After packing the kit away I sat and had a coffee and was pleasantly surprised to find I had caught 92 new plus 16 retraps and what's more, I had managed to catch another 87 Redwing. The last bird of the day was a new Kingfisher taking us to 19 for the year.

Mick

4 comments:

  1. Well done Mick. Was that with love song,serenade or both, Fingers crossed for the Redpoll

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  2. How can you doubt it David? lol ...
    Wear banding about 40 years and I know for having the best track's claim of southern Europe.
    We all know that the same claim works differently in different places and on the same date, but still, I managed to have one right for each species and time of year.
    Only comment that this year I've ringed alone and unaided over 10,000 birds a result.
    It may seem pedantic but at the end of the year will see the results on my blog.
    I leave a video that I could do last year with Common Chiffchaff, that day were over 400 individuals:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0hpd1LQ5Ls
    Un abrazo desde Andalucia .Fernando.

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    Replies
    1. That's an incredible number of birds. Are you ringing every day?

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