Bramble Finch

What a week it has been. The weather has been awful, with houses, roads and fields flooded, cars and people stranded, and at least one person dead as a direct result. Over the last seven days it has rained on four days, resulting in 76 mm of rainfall, two-thirds of that on one day, Wednesday. All this accompanied by gale force winds, as signified by our neighbours fence blowing down yesterday. We have had no workmen all week until the sun shone, today.

It was a pleasant surprise to find a spanking juvenile male Brambling in the bottom of the net first thing this morning, only the third time I've been able to open in the last seven days. This breaks another duck for 2012, bringing the species caught by me this year in ST04 to 42, one more than last year.

First winter male Brambling

Later this morning, I retrapped a male Blackbird, ringed as a 1CY in mid-November 2011, that I subsequently re-caught another eight times up to 1st May this year, but not since. As can be seen from the photographs, it has a noticeable brown bar across the median & greater coverts and an admixture of grey/brown feathers on its belly (and a few elsewhere). Has this happened as a consequence of moulting during periods of heavy rain when its diet may have been severely restricted?

Second winter male Blackbird - "stressed" plumage

Half of all the birds this week we managed to catch on Sunday, when the weather behaved itself momentarily. Lizzie's verdict on the morning's ringing in the orchard here was "lovely to be able to come inside and warm up". She's not one for cold weather ringing, but, there again, she had just returned from tramping up and down the mountains in Brescia (Italy) looking for illegal nets, traps and bird-trappers. See here for more on that.

Gt. Spotted Woodpecker (1) - a 4M from mid-Sept. down on the meadows

Goldcrest 2 (2) - 3 young males & an adult female

Blue Tit 8 (4) - 3:1, 1st years: older

Great Tit 2 - 1CY birds

Coal Tit 3 - 2 of which were adults

Wren 1 (1) - a new adult

Blackbird 3 (1) - (see above)

Robin (1) - a 'juvenile' from June still here (female?)

Dunnock (1) - from 11/11, last 'seen' end of March this year

Brambling 1 - first of the year!

Goldfinch 5 (1) - the r/t was a young bird from Sept. on the meadows

A total of 11 species, 25 new birds plus 12 re-traps.

The weather ahead looks like more storms with high winds and heavy rainfall with alternate days of slightly calmer conditions. Not a lot of hope for much bird ringing there, then. Until next weekend, cheerio and take care.

Williton Station - pm Wed 21 Nov 2012