Siskins Return and Common Redpolls Continue

Just ten new birds caught at home on Saturday morning showing that there is still not much coming to my feeders!  This involved a Dunnock, six Goldfinch, a Song Thrush, a Blue Tit and amazingly a Common (Mealy) Redpoll!  This was a first for my garden and was a very pristine immature male (below).

My next visit to Leith Hill with Martin again produced a bounty of Redpolls although much reduced from last week.  A total of 34 Redpoll were caught of which 32 were Commons and just two were Lesser and one of these Lessers was a retrap from 28th Sep which was only the second caught this autumn.  Same site retraps of this species are uncommon in autumn and winter because they are generally moving areas all the time in search of food.  A selection of photos of these Commons are shown below:

Bird1 - Adult male

Bird 1 - Adult male

Bird 2 - 1st winter

Bird 3 - Unaged

Bird 3 - Unaged

Other species caught included 11 Goldcrests, two Long-tailed Tit and after a couple of weeks absence five Siskin.  These were all first year birds and four of which were retraps having been originally ringed here on different dates between 22nd August and 27th September.

Birds ringed:
Dunnock - 1
Goldfinch - 6
Blue Tit - 5
Common Redpoll - 33
Lesser Redpoll - 1
Great Tit - 1
Goldcrest - 11
Long-tailed Tit - 2
Song Thrush - 2