Gerrin ready!

A visit to the Shakerley feeding station was pencilled in for today, and having not had much time for ringing recently, I was rather looking forward to it. I had planned to be up & out early, but an evening in Manchester last night, soon put a stop to that idea! So I rose from my pit at 11am (shocking hour for a ringer!), moped around on the couch feeling sorry for myself before getting ready and leaving for Shakerley.

Despite the late start, sun shining on the net & a slight breeze whipping around the site, I didn’t do too badly and probably had one of the best days I’ve ever had at Shakerley! 80 birds caught, 63 new & 17 recaps.

Species	New	Recap
Jay	1
Chaffinch	11	1
Goldfinch	12
Greenfinch	7
Bullfinch	4	1
Blue Tit	7	5
Great Tit	11	9
Long Tailed Tit	8	1
Coal Tit	2
	63	17

You will have probably have heard of the large numbers of Waxwings around at the moment. So I thought I would be prepared for their arrival, should they decide to descend on Atherton like they did in 2004/05 (250-300 on Boxing day!). So I’ve contacted a number of people who have Rowan trees in their gardens & asked permission to catch Waxwings, should they appear! Here’s hoping…..

More Tufted Duck.

The weekend started with a 05:30 start on Saturday, which saw Me, Craig & Ciaran meeting Steve at one of our ringing sites in Manchester. We were aiming to catch more Meadow Pipits, but we only caught 2 new ones but the bonus was controlling a bird (a bird ringed by another ringer). We also managed to catch a few Tits, Chaffinch and a Goldcrest.

After packing up, Me and Craig decided we would try to catch some Coot at a local park - however non were catchable - but we did catch 3 Moorhen & 1 Tufted Duck.

This Cormorant was on the Lake, bearing a ring - despite several attempts at reading & photographing the ring we only managed to read part of the ring number - 524809*

Sunday morning we trapped at the new feeding station, catching - 2 Dunnocks, 6 Long Tailed

Tit, 3 Great Tit, 2 Blue Tit and 1 Jay + 1 retrap 1 Willow tit.

With Craig having to be elsewhere in the afternoon, he left Me & Ciaran, and we headed up the M6 to Lake Windermere. 4 Tufted Duck, 2 Mallard, 9 Canada Goose and 1 Black Headed Gull ringed today at Windermere.

All in all - a good week with 80 new birds, 3 retraps & 1 Control.

Jay.

A few weeks ago I noticed a pair of Jays in our local cemetery and after a bit of detective work I managed to find their nest. Unfortunately it was at the top of a very spindly Holly tree and there was no way the tree would have held my weight!

So I sent a mirror on a pole up the tree in order for me to monitor the contents of the nest. They laid 4 eggs, all hatched and this week were due to fledge. The only way for me to get at them to ring was to monitor them carefully and check the nest & tree each day for fledged youngsters.

The first two fledged today and branched to a nearby tree - allowing me to climb it and retrieve one of the birds (the other was too high up the tree!).

After ringing and a quick photo shoot, he was placed back in the tree.