Yellow delight.

In balmy conditions we erected some nets in the cover crop at Ludham on Saturday morning. A mixture of single and four shelf nets were put out in anticipation.
Good numbers of finches have been using the mixture of Kale/Quinoa and millet, with up to 100 Chaffinch and good numbers of Linnet/Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer. A few  Song Thrush are also present, we seem to think they are getting Slugs from under the Kale.
27 new birds were ringed, with a retrap Wren and a control Greenfinch making the total up.
Best bird being a Yellowhammer which gave Sharon the opportunity to extend her knowledge to another species.

Sharon and her Yellow delight.

Wren;  2 (1) originally ringed 19/12/2009

Dunnock; 2

Robin; 2

Blackbird; 3

Song Thrush; 3

Blue Tit; 3

Great Tit; 1

Chaffinch; 6

Greenfinch; (1) Control, possibly a bird from the Eccles ringing course.

Yellowhammer; 1

Reed Bunting; 4

Adult female Yellowhammer.

Birds in the area also included a fly over Buzzard being mobbed by a couple of Jackdaws, a flock of 22 Skylark in the neighbouring field and some noisy Pinkfeet across the road.

Sharon also expertly extracted a Migrant Hawker from one of the nets, seems a little late to still be on the wing.    

Winter is here again.

Its that time of year again, Snow Buntings are arriving and ducks are increasing.
The first Snow Bunting turned up at Caister on 6th November a good 2 to 3 weeks later than normal with 8 being present, these quickly increased to about 30 on the  9th and up to 40 on 18th. They soon found the food we are providing much to their liking. With strong southerly winds forecast for Saturday morning we decided to have a go for these instead of mist netting.
We managed a goods catch with 38 new birds, another 4 were flying about managing to evade the net.
All were first Winter's (3) with 21 females and 17 males, it was interesting to find that we had more Nivalis birds than Insulae (18 and 10 respectively , with 10 intermediates. ) No retraps were caught, we always find it incredible that they seem to find the food so easily.

1st. Winter (3) Female Snow Bunting, Insulae race 

1st. Winter Male Snow Bunting, Nivalis race

While we were there several flocks of Brent Geese went past as well as several Gannet, also 3 Shelduck and a lone Red Throated Diver.

2 Grey Seal were also seen offshore. 

On Sunday 13th we ventured to Hickling for a duck session, James had kindly been feeding the pond up and had reported a few duck had arrived and been feeding there. Nets were erected in the normal pattern and we waited patiently, it was quiet at first but then they eventually turned up. About 25 Mallard at first but they were having none of it and proceeded to fly off! Luckily Teal began to arrive and land on the water, using mist nets to catch these is always a bit hit or miss and eventually we managed to catch 8 out of about 100+ flying around! Still a worth while catch and enabling us to increase our knowledge of this species.

Adult Male (4) Teal

1st Winter Male (3) Teal

 Teal tail feathers, all adult type bar two on the  right being juvenile type. 

4 Drakes and 4 ducks were caught, with all bar one being first Winter's

Thanks must go again to James for his enthusiastic support for this project.

Winterton 29th October

Winterton was again the venue on Saturday 29th Oct. It was very slow to start, the woods being very quiet, but it picked up a bit mid morning when the Tit flocks started moving about.
The net in the dunes again produced 5 new Reed Bunting, 21 so far!
 A few more Redpoll were seen with a flock of 25 flying about. We eventually caught 11 more with 2 being controls, L916247 and X157963.

Adult male Lesser Redpoll

It was a busy morning with a few bird watcher's dropping in and seeing what was being caught, this was due to an Isabelline Shrike being present up the road at Horsey.

53 new birds, 12 retraps and 2 controls were caught making a total of 69 birds handled. Retraps in brackets.

Meadow Pipit 1

Wren  2 (1)

Robin 2 (1)

Blackbird 3

Song Thrush 2

Goldcrest 7

Long-tailed Tit 12  (7) with one from 12/09/2009 and 3 from 19/09/2009

Blue Tit 6 (3) one originally ringed 27/09/2008

Great Tit 1 (2)

Chaffinch 3

Lesser Redpoll 9 (2) both controls

Reed Bunting 5 

Woodcock were again present early on when Dave flushed 3 out while opening the nets.

Dave decided to stay a little longer and do a bit more while the rest of us had to go, he was soon on the phone telling us of a Rough legged Buzzard flying over the dunes giving superb views.

On the 6th November a quick walk down Caister North beach produced 8 Snow Bunting  (no ringed birds) feeding on the food, these being the first of the Winter here. Hopefully numbers will build up in the next few weeks.