Wednesday 28 March 2012

Nice sunny birdlessish day

Heysham Obs
Vis mig
Meadow Pipit - c35
Skylark - 1
Siskin - 1
Lesser Redpoll - c25
alba Wagtail - 3
Goldfinch - 6

Offshore
Gannet - 2 'in'
Eider - 145

Grounded
Goldcrest - 1 - first noted early afternoon!
Blackcap - 1 singing male very first thing, moved on
Wheatear - 1 on mound
Robin - unringed adult was a surprise
Twite - four on the north wall seed, including two unringed birds

Ringing
Stunningly unsuccessful with the two migrating flocks of Lesser Redpoll both containing 'spooky' individuals which dragged the flocks away from the netting area almost as soon as they had landed, possibly also due to this being the worst time of the morning for sun on the nets.  Ringing limited to the above Robin plus 1+1+1+1+2 Lesser Redpoll

Interestingly, we have ringed almost 500 birds so far this year, the vast majority in March with a big chunk of these being 165 Goldcrest - by far the largest ever spring total for this species