Late Feb/early March

The second half of February was mainly spent completing management work on our CES site. On 25th, Andy, Ron and Jerry installed the new stile at the end on gn5 (which had been waiting a work-task since the 2014 AGM !!). This will give more options when doing a net round, to avoid having to retrace one's route. 

GN5

GN6

The workers, rightly proud of their stile!

The feeders had been very quiet for much of this year (in contrast to recent winters), but on 26th, when Jerry was back to restrain the fence-line either side of the stile, there were a handful of Siskin on the nyger feeder. A net was quickly put up, but in three hours he only had 3 captures - 1 Goldf (caught twice) and (1) Lesre. Its a shame that the ban can't be lifted on ringing Pheasant, as there are more opportunities to catch them at present.

JMSL's new best friend. Although rumour has it that she has recently taken a bit of a liking to JR as well!

At the end of the month Andy discovered a winter bird crop near Llangorse village. Unfortunately the next week was very windy, but on 5th of March, it had eased (only a little and still quite breezy), so he and Jerry tried an afternoon catch. In a little less than four hours they had caught 76 + (2) birds, comprising 1 Blabi, 1 Chaff, 31 + (2) Reebu - a new day record (the two recaptures having been ringed in rb2 in July '13 and July '14), and the star catch was 43 Yelha (only 4 have previously been ringed by the Group - 3 in 1980 and 1 in 1997). As the farm is in Glastir, there should be more opportunities to ring there in future winters.

So this is where all the Reed Bunting have been going every winter!!

Relatively few Yellowhammer are ringed in Wales these days, 143 in 2012 and just 75 in 2013.