Saved the best until last.

The second trip to Winterton this year, Saturday 21st April, produced a few more birds than the last session.
The nets were erected on the Saturday morning rather than the night before as it was raining 'Cats and Dogs' Friday night.
However the mornings weather forecast was going to be fine up to about 11am, as it proved we were right to have a go with a good selection of birds being caught and seen.

Chiffchaff (5M) and Willow Warbler (4M)

The first Willow Warblers and Treecreepers for the year were caught , with the last bird of the day proving to be a Belgian ringed Goldfinch ! This is our first foreign ringed Goldfinch ,we have had 3 of 'ours' found in Belgium. 

Belgian 'King Harry' (5M)

39 birds were caught with 24 new, 14 retraps (in brackets) and 1 control.

Wren; 0 (3) 2 from 2011 and another ringed 02/10/10

Dunnock; 2 (4) 1 from 2010, 2 from 2009 and 1 originally ringed 21/04/2007

Blackbird; 0 (1)

Blackcap; 7 (2) 1 from April 2011 and the other ringed as an adult 19/09/2009

Chiffchaff; 3

Willow Warbler; 3

Long-tailed Tit; 2

Blue Tit; 2 (1)

Great Tit; 1 (1)

Treecreeper; 1 (2) both from Autumn last year.

Goldfinch; 2 (1) Belgian control.

One of the Treecreepers.

Bid watching included a Buzzard heard and seen, a pair of Sparrowhawk displaying and 5 trumpeting Cranes .

The Cranes had been heard all morning but then later on flew overhead with 3 of them flying noisily out to sea but eventually turning back towards land.

5 Cranes overhead but only a 50mm lens on the camera, doh !

As the morning warmed up a few Adders were again seen sunning themselves, they proved a bit too quick to get any decent photos!

One of the slippery customers.

Quick visit

With Dave celebrating a certain birthday, Gary on holiday and Arthur going to watch the Canaries it was left to Tony and I to have the last visit to Caister for the Linnets.
We met at 6.45am on Saturday 14th  to find a sharp frost and bright blue skies, the net was set then we waited and waited and waited.........
During the week there had been at least 50/60 in the area with up to 50 coming off the food on Wednesday night in one flock !
Eventually some went down and we managed to catch 10 new and another control, Y081630. The males are now looking pretty dandy in there finery.

Mr Dandy.

The only other sightings during the morning were of a Red Throated Diver flying north and 2 Sanderling on the beach, amazingly these were the first we have seen here this Winter. They normally occur all Winter and are usually quite common here.

2 Grey Seals were offshore, these seemed to give much excitement to a couple of holiday makers who were intent on getting a photograph.

With the sun up, the birds having other things on their mind and people everywhere we packed up early and headed for home.

5M Linnet (As above)

Cold, damp, windy Easter!

We were all looking forward to a nice Easter weekend with a bit of ringing, however it turned out to be cold, damp and windy with Easter Monday a complete washout .
We did manage a few bits and pieces, starting at Caister for the Linnets on Good Friday.
We arrived just before sunrise to be greeted with a hard frost, even the sand was frozen and a temperature of -4 ºC!
20 new and 5 retraps, 4 being recent and one from 12/03/2011 were caught.


Saturday morning we were hoping for some migrants at Winterton, unfortunately the day dawned with a cold NW putting a stop to any new arrivals.
Luckily some had already arrived and the first Blackcaps and Chiff's were duly caught, but not much else was going on.

Male Blackcap

Female Blackcap

Ringing consisted of only 16 birds with 13 new and 3 retraps.

Dunnock; 2 (1) originally ringed 04/04/2010

Robin; 1

Blackbird; 2

Blackcap; 2

Chiffchaff; 2 (1) This bird was ringed as a 3 on 10/09/2011, had it been here all winter ?

Goldcrest; 1

Great Tit; 1

Goldfinch; 2

Monty with 'his' Dunnock

Later on in the morning Arthur arrived with his Son and Grandson to explain the ringing, they both seemed at home with the birds and became very interested in them.

Dave explaining to Monty how to measure a Goldfinch wing.

As we took the nets down 3 Adders were seen basking in the sun?! They must have been desperate for a bit of heat.

On arriving home a Chiff was heard calling in the garden so one 40' net was quickly erected, resulting in it being caught with 2 Blackcaps, a nice end to the weekend as the weather deteriorated.

On Tuesday it was back to work, so of course the sun came out and the wind dropped!!! A phone call was received mid morning from Winterton to say a few more corvids had been caught. Luckily for us but not him Tony was at home instead of work as his car had broken down, so he was quickly deployed to go ring them. This resulted in another 27 Jackdaw and 2 Rook being ringed.

Linnets at Caister

Two recent sessions at Caister, on 24th and 31st of March have produced the goods.
At least 40 Linnets are present in the area at any one time and  find the feeding area to their liking, but most of the time only come down in 2's or 3's. However on both dates a flock of 15 were caught at once, all being new birds.

Male Linnet

Over the 2 sessions we have ringed 50 new linnets and had 1 control, Y081931, any takers? 

There still appears to be plenty of unringed birds in the area so another visit is planned soon.

Male Linnet (same as above)

The only other birds of note were a fly over Grey Wagtail and a Grey Plover flying north offshore. 2 Ringed Plover are now resident on the beach and displaying well.

*****

Saturday 24th also saw the last Ludham visit, with another afternoon visit. It was very quiet with only 2 birds seen and caught, a new male Yellowhammer and a recent retrap Reed Bunting.

Its been a fantastic site for us this winter with 50 new Yellowhammer and 73 new Reed Bunting being ringed.

The Yellowhammer total far exceeding what we have ringed before.

Thanks again to James for letting us ring there and for his enthusiasm for the project.

Also a Crane flew east while we were there.