Winter ringing pilot 2020/21

On Saturday 12th December, there was a break in the unsettled weather, so Andy had a session at his Pennorth feeders. His catch was 22 + (8), made up of Robin 1, Dunnock 1, Coal Tit 1 + (2), Blue Tit 16 + (4), Great Tit 2 + (1), Nuthatch (1) and House Sparrow 1. The most interesting bird was a Great Tit ringed at the jetty on 31/07/18 (by Andy/Jerry), before being caught at the Pennorth feeders in October.

The BTO had recently announced a new winter ringing project (partly to encourage more "targeted ringing" after the disruptions of a Covid 19 year), and the current 2020/21 winter will be treated as a pilot year. In order to ensure consistent effort, basic CES protocols of summer are followed, but food provisioning is allowed - to enable the capture target of 200-300 captures (over six fortnightly sessions, during the winter months). The data gathered will allow generation of both age-specific survival rates and age ratios, for those species where this information is not already gathered from CES summer captures. Potential candidate species are topped by finches (especially Bullfinch, Chaffinch and Goldfinch), and Coal Tit. We will register Andy's garden for this pilot season. It is however possible/likely, that poor weather will prevent some sessions, and with few captures of the target species, we may not be able to contribute in the long term.

We have also now received details of all the C/R gulls Jerry, Ron, Carlton and co spotted in Sennen Cove on this years trip. The blog post here has been updated with all the details.