Mid March sessions and AGM

On March 14 Andy and Jerry had a final session at the Pennorth feeders. It was a bit breezy, but they had a useful catch of 16 + (9), made up of (1) Grswo - (adding a couple more months to the longevity record), 1 Robin, 1 Dunno, 7 + (4) Bluti, 2 + (3) Greti, (1) Nutha, 3 Chaff (plus a couple more with scaley legs released un-ringed) and 2 Grefi.

Our AGM was on 15th, and saw 10 members huddled in the village hall for a couple of hours - most members brought cakes/biscuits to help keep the meeting on track. A Red Kite drifting several times past the windows was the highlight for some, but a quick birdwatch pre-meeting, had 4 Little Egret flying to the NW end of the Lake, and about 50 Sand Martin feeding close to the water surface. The AGM itself was productive, with the recent good work by many members recognised and plenty of ideas shared on how to improve the output of the group, including some interesting and productive ideas for the blog, so watch this space!

The 17th had the best forecast for the week (with winds of <5 expected), so Andy and Jerry had a second session at the bird feeder crop. One of the 3 nets (from 5th) was repositioned to cover a section of hedge that seemed to be most favoured by the birds previously. But the birds thought otherwise, and used the part of the hedge where the net had been on 5th !! The net was quickly put back to its original location, and with some gentle guidance of the feeding flock (before flushing them), two good catches of about 20 birds resulted. A run of single/double panel nets, set for Skylark (about 40 present) failed to catch any. In about 5 hours a total of 88 + (1) birds were caught - 4 Dunno, 25 + (1) Reebu (caught in GN7 in Sept '13, and this was its first recapture), and 59 Yelha. One interesting finding, of this second session, was the increased proportion of females (particularly Yellowhammers), presumably the males having started to drift back to their breeding territories