So, the ‘somewhere else I needed
to be’ that prevented me from staying in Norfolk on Sunday evening was Brackenhurst
on Monday morning. At 6am, I joined Jim, Gary, Duncan and Emma for a morning’s
ringing at one of our winter feeding sites. It was a bitterly cold morning that
should have yielded good numbers of birds in the nets. Unfortunately, this wasn’t
to be.
The morning started auspiciously
enough when a woodcock flushed from one of the rides that we were setting nets
in. Despite Jim and Gary’s best efforts during the morning, it didn’t want to
play and refused to be flushed into the nets. The net rounds started slowly
with just a few birds each time and to be honest, they didn’t get much better.
There just didn’t seem to be many birds around.
The highlight of the day for me
was a goldcrest. They are stunningly beautiful little birds and I haven’t seen
one in the hand for a while, so it was a treat to get to ring that. A re-trap tree
sparrow was also nice to see. The first of this year’s migrants paid us a visit
– one chiffchaff who responded remarkably quickly to the sound lure. Interestingly, most of the re-traps
that we caught were adults, heightening our suspicions that last year was a
disastrous breeding season. A lot of the chaffinches we caught also had high
fat scores indicating that they may be continental birds that haven’t yet set
off on the return journey to their breeding grounds.
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| Gorgeous little goldcrest |
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| First spring migrant of the year |
We gave up late in the morning
when the winds became too strong and we could no longer feel our fingers! Twas
a nice morning, despite the cold and the low avian turnout!
Oh and in answer to the question
in the title, by the end of the weekend, I did!!!
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