128 Birds Later

The last two weeks has gone by so fast and with a hectic work load of late have not kept up with the blog!  But I have still managed to do some ringing with four sessions at home and three sessions at Leith Hill which totalled 128 birds.

The sessions at home produced mainly Blue Tits and Great Tits, but a few highlights included the first Coal Tit here for the autumn (above), nine Goldfinch, six Long-tailed Tits, a Blackcap, a Goldcrest and two Chiffchaff.  Meadow Pipit migration is is full swing, but although I attempted to catch some of these on each session unfortunately came up with a big fat zero!  Will keep trying.  An interesting catch was a juvenile Greenfinch which had a partial amount of wing moult, having moulted primary feathers 5 and 6 with primary 4 just coming through (below)

At Leith Hill, I continued to try to catch some of the migrant Siskin that are coming through, but as with the Meadow Pipits, this proved far harder than expected as after three sessions only managed to catch eight!  One of these juveniles (below) looked as though it could have been a bird of northern origin as it had a darker plumage than the local birds and was further behind in its moult. Considering there were large numbers around including a flock of over 300, this was really poor, but they all seemed to be focusing on eating natural food instead of coming to feeders.  Although the Siskins weren't present in numbers ringing included 17 Chiffchaff and 7 Goldcrest.  Other migrants over Leith Hill included a few Woodlark, Yellow Wagtail, Tree Pipit, lots of Swallow and House Martin, but highlights were a Marsh Harrier and a Honey Buzzard.

Birds ringed:
Blue Tit - 40
Great Tit - 14
Coal Tit - 3
Dunnock - 4
Siskin - 8
Chaffinch - 2
Robin - 3
Goldfinch - 9
Blackcap - 1
Goldcrest - 8
Wren - 4
Long-tailed Tit - 6
Chiffchaff - 19
Greenfinch - 5
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 1