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Monday, 3 November 2014

A five finch finish to October

On the 31st of October Peter, Alan and Ted carried on where others had left off and were later joined by Jerry, playing the Lesser Redpoll and Siskin tapes in the garden. The catch in the scrub nets was slightly improved on recent days but still not spectacular, so after initial rounds of 4 and 3 birds when the third round drew a blank, Peter opened up GN3 at the seed feeders for 4 hours. This helped boost the numbers to a respectable total catch of 34 birds for the (breezy) session.

Totals were as follows:
Goldc 1
Treec 1
Blaca 1
Coati (2)
Bluti 1 (9)
Greti (3)
Lesre 3
Bullf 1 (1)
Chaff 2 (1)
Goldf 1 (1)
Grefi 1 (1)
Nutha 1
Robin (1)
Grswo 1 (1)
Totals 14 (20)

It was actually a really good session with lots of variety, a late (or wintering?) Blackap, two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 5 species of finch, 3 species of tit and other odds and ends. Pretty much all your common garden birds, aside from the thrushes and the bigger stuff! A couple of 'unusual' common birds raised some debate, a Greenfinch with intermediate sexing characteristics and a Chaffinch with a case of Fringilla papillomavirus so severe it had lost one of its legs!

Other non-ringing, birding highlights included a Little Grebe, a Peregrine over the point both morning and late afternoon and a Red-Breasted Merganser with the diving duck and coot in front of the car park. So all in all a very good session.

In Oct 171 birds ringed, and YTD becomes 2144, making it likely that this will be a "top five" year - 2011 is currently 4th highest with 2460, and 2007 is 5th with 2418.

Blaca (photo AIJ)

Lesre (photo AIJ)

Grswo (photo AIJ)



The unfortunate Chaffinch (photo's PRJ)



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