A Lot of Lotti’s

Tuesday, December 27th 2016

This was not the usual Tuesday at the reserve, instead of the usual volunteers coming in for 8.30 am, it was the bird ringers, 10 of them!

It was a steady day, with the ringing team filling the bird feeders as the mist nets went up. The cold wind from the previous day had probably restricted the birds feeding so they would have been pleased for the still air and the extra seed.

Over 120 birds were processed, many were re-traps; previously caught and already carrying rings. Over 50 birds were newly ringed by us; Goldcrests, Redpolls, Long-Tailed Tits, several Reed Buntings amongst the more common Blue and Great Tits. We have species codes when we are recording birds, for example a Redpoll is REDPO, and a Long-tailed Tit is a LOTTI.

The Long Tailed Tits, moving in small groups, had us ringing 10 birds from one net round. We like to keep these birds in their groupings as they are so gregarious, releasing them all at the same time so they could continue feeding together.

One of the released birds

We had Peter who filled my shoes while I did the usual putting up nets, net rounds, extracting birds from the nets and ringing. He checked the Green Route for fallen trees with Brian, continued coppicing Hazel on the Bank as well as checking the feed store for leaks, and setting the motion sensor camera on the Beck. Peter you deserved that cuppa…. Thank you!

It was a fun day with a serious purpose of gathering bird data; wing length, weight, sex and age, to go toward the collated data gathered by the BTO ( British Trust of Ornithology). Thank you to all that attended.

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