First bird crop sessions

With changeable weather, partially flooded net-lanes and Jerry out of action from 24th November for his knee operation, it was predictable that ringing at Llangasty should tail-off a bit. However, other locations have come to the fore. The Group is fortunate with Andy living "on site" - as he is better able to react when weather conditions turn out to be better than forecast. So on 24th, he went to the Pennorth birdcrop to set up/measure out lengths for 2 x 18 metre (3 panel) nets. That was done along a managed section of hedgerow, during which the breeze dropped and with good numbers of birds using the unharvested barley crop, including several Yellowhammer and Reed Buntings which are the target species for the Group’s efforts on winter birdcrops, he decided to stay. A 3hr session was quite successful with a catch of 26 new birds (no retraps) being 10 Blue Tit, 1 Dunnock, 9 House Sparrows, 3 Reed Bunting and 3 Yellowhammer. A wholly white leucistic House Sparrow came close to the net but was not caught. The weather improved further, and with ground conditions drying (430mm = 17 inches rain had fallen since the last week in September!), Andy made a second attempt to ring in his Pennorth garden on 29th. After waiting for the frost to ease, the catch was similar to his effort there a fortnight earlier, catching 46 new/10 retraps. Tit species were predictably dominant - 24 + (5) Blue Tit, 4 + (2) Great Tit, 2 + (3) Coal Tit, 1 Marsh Tit but also 1 Blackbird, 1 Robin, 3 Chaffinch, 2 Dunnock and 8 House Sparrow.

The group’s November total was 228 new birds, with YTD of 2373.

Andy tried a second session on the Pennorth birdcrop on 2nd December. The field was much drier than a week earlier, but for 3 hours the catch was slow until 3pm when the customary large single catch was made. Over 30 birds was something of a challenge with only an hour or so of daylight left, so several Blue Tit were released straightaway, and some of the House Sparrow catch were ‘rung and released’. The remainder were fully processed and released before dark. The day’s catch was 39 + (1), being 1 + (1) Blue Tit, 1 Wren, 2 Blackbird, 1 Dunnock, 14 House Sparrow, 5 Chaffinch, 2 Reed Bunting and 13 Yellowhammer. A Buzzard netted was released unringed as no G rings were available