Quality not quantity

Bletchingley Bird Ringing ~ 16th March 2014 ~ 

The last two times that we have visited this site, we have been run off our feet with birds. This time however, we had a lot less birds but we did get quite a few different species and time to examine each one carefully which was very nice!

There was a distinct lack of birds around when we arrived - this is probably because of the warm weather we've had recently. We put up a total of three nets around the property: one by the feeders at the front of the house, one in the woods, and one by the feeders in the back garden.

Blue Tit aged 6 in good condition with a weight of 11.6g
The above Blue Tit with a bill deformity

The birds trickled in throughout the session, the highlight was undoubtedly the male House Sparrow which was very cool to see in the hand.

4M House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) portrait
4M House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

A close second was the 5M Goldcrest which was a lovely surprise and a nice addition to Ralph and Pat's garden list!

5M Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)

Once again, many thanks to Ralph and Pat for their exceedingly good hospitality, constant supply of hot drinks, amazing bacon rolls and lovely lunch to end a successful ringing session.

Our totals for the day are as follows: 33 (13)

Blackbird - 1
Blue Tit - 17 (6)
Chaffinch - 0 (1)
Dunnock - 3 (2)
Goldcrest - 1
Goldfinch - 2
Great Tit - 4 (3)
House Sparrow - 1
Lesser Redpoll - 1
Long-tailed Tit - 1
Robin - 2 (1)

As always, thank you very much for reading and you can keep up to date with my activity on Facebook and Twitter and my website here.

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