Lamsdell Bird Ringing and Wildlife Blog: Bletchingley Garden

Tuesday, 10 January 2017

Bletchingley Garden - 8th January 2017

We made arrangements to spend the day 'chez Pat and Ralph', monitoring the birds that make use of their many feeders. We have been doing yearly winter visits here since 2012. This year we were accompanied by our two trainees as it is our only chance of high numbers during the winter period and extracting a lot of tits around feeders helps develop extracting skills,

After some uncertainty as to whether there would be favourable weather conditions, the day dawned with light mist rather than rain and the planned ringing was able to go ahead. The standard five nets were put up, with additional ground and potter traps, although nothing was caught in either of these.

It wasn't long before there were birds to extract and both trainees had plenty of extraction practice, mostly with Great and Blue Tits. As well as the glut of tits, and opportunities to compare multiple individuals of the same species, there were other species that we rarely catch at our usual sites and Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Ring-necked Parakeet and House Sparrow provided some really useful experience.

We had recaptures from each of the four previous sessions held here and these are shown in the table below.

K052235	Blue Tit	Ringed as adult on 16/02/2014
K052236	Blue Tit	Ringed as adult on 16/02/2014
K052348	Great Tit	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
K052358	Great Tit	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
K052379	Great Tit	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
K052387	Blue Tit	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
K052393	Great Tit	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
LC56820	Great Spotted Woodpecker (female)	Ringed as 2Y on 14/03/2015
TJ77614	Nuthatch (male)	Ringed on 9/12/2012 and recaptured 16/02/2014
TJ77616	Nuthatch (female)	Ringed 16/02/2014
Y823552	Great Tit	Ringed as adult 30/11/2013
Y823587	Blue Tit	Ringed as juvenile 30/11/2013
Y823622	Goldfinch	Ringed as juvenile 30/11/2013

Recaptured

TJ77616 Nuthatch female

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker LC56821

Male House Sparrow VB90911

First time handling Ring-necked Parakeet (with an audience too)

6F Ring-necked Parakeet

Many thanks to Ralph and Pat for their wonderful hospitality, all the tea, coffee, biscuits and rolls and especially that fantastic vegetable soup!

Totals: 116 (13)

Ring-necked Parakeet - 1

Great Spotted Woodpecker - 1 (1)

Wren - 1

Robin - 3

Dunnock - 7

Blackbird - 4
Coal Tit - 3

Blue Tit - 43 (4)

Great Tit - 36 (5)
Nuthatch - 0 (2)
House Sparrow - 1

Chaffinch - 5

Goldfinch - 11 (1)

About us

Chris and Denise Lamsdell

We have both been birders for about 40 years based in South Bucks near the West London reservoir complexes.

Since September 2021 we have been based in North Norfolk. We have done our bit of twitching in the past, but with other priorities this has become a much reduced activity with a preference for seeing new birds where ever our travels take us.

We both have been ringing since 2005. Our local group was the Runnymede RG while based in Buckinghamshire. Since moving to Norfolk we have started a new group called The Iceni Bird Monitoring Group, aimed at increasing public engagement through colour ringing projects on Black-headed Gull, Turnstone and Lapwing. We ring at several sites including Sculthorpe Moor, Sandringham Estate, Deepdale Farm and also monitor bird populations for the Norfolk Rivers Trust. We do ringing at home and support with foreign projects when opportunities allow. Chris also has an interest in Butterflies and Dragonflies and contains his limited photographic skill to them.