Tits go AWOL

Another ringing session in Barry's Burton garden this weekend as part of John's project on Blue & Great Tits. The problem is the tits didn't play ball! For the first time the number of finches caught exceeded the number of tits. This begs the question where have they all gone? Have the increased finch numbers driven them away, have they died or is the weather still reasonably mild enough for them to be finding sufficient natural food without coming to the feeders? Only time and our next planned ringing session will tell.

A great day though and the chance for me to ring my first Brambling - thanks to Johns wife smuggling her house keys into his car thereby locking herself in the house meaning John had to go and let her out. its good when a cunning plan comes together..............A cracking 2nd calendar year male.
We caught an impressive six finch species with Goldfinch being the most numerous followed by Lesser Redpoll, Siskin & Chaffinch.

 Photo courtesy of Barry Barnacal

One of the  2nd calendar year Redpolls was interesting as it appeared to have lost half of its tail at some stage so half was juvenile and half was adult.

2nd calendar year female Redpoll showing adult type tail (rounded) on left of photo and juvenile type (pointed) on right.

A great day although very cold and despite the lack of tits we still ringed around 90 new birds and re-trapped around 40. Using this data along with the number of same day retraps we can estimate the total population of birds using Barry's garden - an incredible 500 birds -using a statistical analysis devised by my old University lecturer Mike Hounsome along with Chris Du Feu known as the Du Feu method.

Photo courtesy Barry Barnacal.

Sunday was bitterly cold and slightly misty but a good sized tide encouraged us to go over to Hilbre for a bit of a seawatch and undertake the WeBs count. A good day all round with Red-throated Divers, Common Scoter's, Guillemot, Razorbill adult Med Gull, Rock Pipit and a Shag being recorded along with good numbers of Turnstone's (including 5 colour ringed birds from previous years) and 12 Purple Sandpipers and over 230 Brent Geese.

Tits and a Shag - what more would you want in a blog post?