Garden and Stanwell Moor ringing site - 29 August

The morning started off looking good, lots of finches coming into the garden, and down onto the ground to feed, including a ringed Goldfinch, so we thought we would see what we could come up with. Finches have better eyesight than Blue Tits or are Tits just stupid? Up goes the net and off go the finches, we ended up with 19 Blue Tits, 5 Great Tits and a single Coat Tit (first of the winter).

Coal Tit - 3

Despite the disappearance of the finches, a surprise was a single Chiff-chaff, always good to get a warbler in the garden, rounded off with a single Collared Dove and juv Blackbird.

Chiff-chaff

The evening was spent at Stanwell Moor ringing site, where at dusk a good pre-roost gathering of Hirundines was present about 100/150 birds resulting in a catch of 16 Swallows and 13 Sand Martins, along with 2 Reed Buntings and a Reed Warbler, with a re-trap Robin.