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Wednesday 16 February 2011

Attenborough Ringing Demo, Sunday 13 Feb

The weather forecast for Sunday was not looking good and Steve rang me at 0900 to check if it was worth making the trip. I told him not to bother as the wind was strong and it had just started to rain here, it looked like there was little chance of catching any birds. I decided to make the short trip to the visitor centre at 10.00 and met Sara and Mick T. The rain had stopped but the wind was still strong, we decided to put up a couple of nets and hope for the best. Just as we finished putting the nets up the rain started again and continued to stop and start all the time we were there, thankfully the wind blew the clouds over quickly and we never got any heavy rain. The weather also took it's toll on the number of people attending the event and hence our demo but we persevered until 14:00 and got the nets down just before the serious rain started. As expected with the poor conditions the catch was limited but, surprisingly, we ended with 19 birds (15 new / 4 retraps). The full count was Robin 1/0, Chaffinch 2/0, Goldfinch 1/0, Tree Sparrow 5/3, Dunnock 1/0, Great Tit 1/0, Blue Tit 2/0, Long-tailed Tit 1/1, Greenfinch 1/0. Of the retraps the most interesting was Tree Sparrow ringed as a pullus at the Centre in 2009. Thanks as usual to the staff at the Visitor Centre for keeping us fed and watered.
Kev

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