As it happens, the Saturday was the only day when the wind was light enough (and not coming from the north, which then blows onto our corner/side of the wood) to ring safely.
All in all, I managed to catch 38 birds up 'til lunch-time. Out of that number 27 were new birds. A flock of 16 Long-tailed tits 'shot' down the side of the wood (over our ditch) but only one found its way into the net (which runs parallel to the eastern boundary, between the fence and the Cherry tree that is festooned with various feeders).
The main feature of the catch was the number of Chaffinches (below) - 10 in all, everyone fresh to the site, everyone a juvenile in P-J moult and fifty-fifty, male & female.
The rest of the catch (retraps in brackets) comprised of :
Gt. Spotted Woodpecker 1 [I forgot to 'snap' this moulting juvenile], Dunnock 1 (1), Robin 1 (1), Long-tailed Tit 1, Marsh Tit (1) - below, Coal Tit 1 (2), Blue Tit 6 (6), Great Tit 4, Green finch 2.
The next two days were very windy, with it gusting up to 40 mph. Very few birds entered the garden at all, probably less than a dozen per day. The ground is also very dry as we haven't had any appreciable rain for a fortnight and precious little for three weeks before that.
The boundary ditch (90 ft long) was dry, so it proved appropriate to get in there and cut the vegetation back. Just happened to have my long-bladed hedge-cutters with me. This has now exposed the ditch bottom and provides fresh foraging for the resident Robins and Blackbirds.
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