A farm in North Norfolk - 6th November 2026

 A rather strange morning today. We went to work a field where the wild bird crop had failed. Some quinoa with little else, but no more than knee high with broad areas of bare earth, this was really only to confirm that the buntings and finches would not be using it in any large numbers, and we were absolutely right. A net in the centre of the field caught nothing despite playing the usual farmland species audio-lures.

We had also put two singles near the hedgerow and tried playing Reed Bunting and Chaffinch, then Redpoll and Redwing as we could hear them overhead and although not an ideal location got 4 Mealy Redpolls.

Despite the poor numbers of finches and buntings, there were a lot of Dunnocks and Robins about, many more than we managed to catch in fact and we ended up with 14 Dunnocks on the recording sheet. Six Robins were caught and one of these was already carrying a ring from the Stavanger, Norway scheme. There was also a male Blackcap in one of the nets with a couple of those Robins. This bird was marked with colour rings for the wintering Blackcaps project.

 Later in the morning there was a second Blackcap, it seemed to have worked its way through the field, like the first, and it went into one of the nets set along the hedgerow. Being November, Blackcap had not been one of the recordings used to encourage birds towards the net since the summer migrants have left weeks ago and wintering Blackcaps, some being known to originate from Germany, are present in very low numbers. We tried a tape and actually got a third! All birds were male and all are now marked for the wintering Blackcaps project. The three birds had fat scores of 4,3 &1.

Age 3 Robin with Norwegian ring

3M Blackcap, fat 4 muscle 2

One of 4 Mealy Redpolls

One of 14 Dunnocks

This unexpected movement of birds through the field made for an interesting morning, even though we only got one of the target farmland birds.

Total:34 (1)

Blackbird - 1
Blackcap - 3
Blue Tit - 1
Chaffinch - 1
Dunnock - 14
Goldcrest - 2
Mealy Redpoll - 4
Robin - 5 (1 control Stavanger, Norway)
Wren - 3

Deepdale Farm, lamping and owling - 3rd November 2026

 One of the great things about ringing is that you can experience something new, no matter how long since you trained and got your permit. This session is a good example, a site where we've done similar sessions before over the last few years, but this time it was different.

Chris went of lamping after we'd got a 12m and 15m owl net combination up and I settled down to wait. I didn't hold out much hope of a capture as the thermal imager wasn't picking up any owl activity at all. After 25 minutes I went to the net and as expected found no owls. On rechecking the net with the thermal, once getting back to the car I could see a heat signature, but it wasn't an owl and didn't look right for a bat either. It turned out to be a Starling. The extraction was difficult from the 60mm mesh net, but 15 minutes later it had been extracted, ringed and released southwards away from the sea wall.  

I couldn't believe it when just a few minutes later there was a similar heat signature from the net. Another Starling that had entered from the seaward side. Thankfully, this extraction was easier and as my headlight was apparently attracting incoming migrating Starlings the nets were pushed up before processing the bird. I had no wish to get more Starlings, singles were bad enough and there are large numbers of Starlings that we usually see around this site at this time of year, so arriving birds could be in quite sizable flocks.

Once the bird had been processed and released I got the nets in to avoid catching anymore.

First Woodcock of the season

Snipe

Chris returned and was surprised to see the nets in and the equipment all by the car. He had returned with a couple of Skylarks, a Snipe and a Woodcock. Not a bad result for his first lamping sortie of this winter, but I'll have to wait for my first owl.

Total:

Skylark -2
Snipe - 1
Starling - 2
Woodcock - 1

Salthouse Garden - 31st October 2026

 A quieter day when Redpolls turning up in small numbers was the main interest. Towards the end of the morning it got a little busier when a flock of tits turned up together, but Goldcrests were conspicuous by their absence and that was a little puzzling given the weather conditions.

Lesser Redpoll male

A sheltered spot for a net

Mealy Redpoll

Totals: 26 (5)

Blue Tit - 10 (4)
Great Tit - 2
Lesser Redpoll - 5
Long-tailed Tit - 2
Mealy Redpoll - 7
Robin - 0 (1)

Deepdale Farm & Sculthorpe Moor - 30th October 2026

 The second day of a short spell of calm weather started with sunrise in the Deepdale marsh fields. We watched three Barn Owls quarter the fields as we put up a five net configuration for Pipits. There were also two singles through a hedge for other passerines moving through the site.

Adult male Kestrel

Control Meadow Pipit

The Pipits came in and we caught a good number for this site including a control. Unexpected was when Chris went to extract one Pipit, almost on top of the net he flushed a late Quail, that whirled off in the wrong direction away from the net. Most unexpected capture was a control Kestrel. We added a darvic code and await details. We do know that it was ringed in January 2024, so was not done as a pullus. There were a few Tits and Crests from the hedge nets, including two two year old Goldcrest retraps of our own birds. A Great White Egret was feeding in the ditch close to the Pipit nets, but never flew in the direction of our nets

After lunch we moved on to Sculthorpe for a roost catch. This is the first time for roosting winter species and Reed Bunting was the primary target. We set up a couple of singles and began watching the number of birds moving about on the reed heads. It was a good catch and there were none that had been ringed in previous years amongst the Buntings, which was a little unexpected.

The day ended with a sunset over the marsh, so a rare day with almost dawn to dusk ringing via the Nest Cafe at Deepdale midday, and over 100 birds across the two sites.

Deepdale Farm

Total: 36 (5)

Blackbird - 2
Blue Tit - 9
Goldcrest - 4 (3)
Great Tit - 2
Kestrel - 0 (1)
Long-tailed Tit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 16 (1)
Robin - 1
Wren - 1

Sculthorpe Moor

Total: 59 (2)

Blue Tit - 13 (1)
Cetti's Warbler - 1
Long-tailed Tit - 2 (1)
Reed Bunting - 41
Wren - 2

Dersingham Bog - 29th October 2026

Todays visit was with the main intention of adding more Stonechats to the project so we set up in an area where previously there had been a group of c 8, but today none, with only the odd one or two coming near to us and moved on quickly. We did set up for hopefully a few passing migrants, but it wasn't a movement day, well it wasn't at this location, though we did manage a few Meadow Pipits and a single early Redwing, along with a few other bits and pieces to make up 34 birds for the morning.

Greenfinch

 

Meadow Pipit

Total 33 (1):

Blackbird - 1

Blue Tit - 10
Goldcrest - 3 (1)
Greenfinch - 4

Meadow Pipit - 8

Redwing - 1

Robin - 1

Wren - 4

Salthouse Garden - 26th October 2026

 There was only a small window of opportunity after storms Austen and Boelo, before more rain in the late morning and windier conditions over night. We were on site for 6am and got 5 nets up with the intention of getting everything in before the rain.

It turned out to be worthwhile as we got a Blackcap and Chiffchaff as well as a few of the Thrushes and Finches that were freshly in. We caught a Redpoll that we immediately identified as Mealy under the criteria before all were lumped together due to no differentiation via DNA analysis.

This pale bird had a wing of 76mm and weight of 13.8g despite having no fat reserves.

Leading species was Blue Tit, but individuals of Redpoll, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Woodpigeon helped push the species tally up to 14.

We started getting nets in at 10ish and were off site by 11:10am

Total: 38 (4)

Blackbird - 2
Blackcap - 1
Blue Tit - 8 (1)
Chaffinch - 4
Chiffchaff - 1
Dunnock - 3 (1)
Goldcrest - 2
Great Tit - 4
Long-tailed Tit - 4 (1)
Mealy Redpoll- 1
Robin - 3
Song Thrush - 2
Woodpigeon - 1
Wren - 2 (1)

Burnham Deepdale - 21st October 2026

 With bad weather setting in for a few days, we decided to return to Deepdale to try for migrating Blackbirds, Robins and thrushes. Last evening had looked promising on https://vogelradar.com/
with signatures of birds shown coming from Scandinavia and in the channel off the coast of France and the Netherlands.

As we drove to the site we saw a couple of tired Woodcock in the headlights, one being on the track up to where we were to set nets.

The initial catch was okay with Blackbirds caught in the nets across the track. It was clear, however that we were catching birds that had arrived over night and there were very few currently arriving. We didn't see many Redwings. There were a few White-fronted Geese overhead and a Barn Owl was also seen.

Female Blackbird

Juvenile Treecreeper

Individual variation between two Robins. The bird on the right

looked lighter in colouration, particularly the legs.

Total: 23

Blackbird - 11
Blue Tit - 1
Dunnock - 1
Goldcrest - 1
Redwing - 1
Robin - 5
Song Thrush - 1
Treecreeper - 1
Wren - 1