Last Saturday (11th January) was almost calm by recent standards and with just two nets open 51 new birds and 32 retraps were caught at Mullock.
A good mixture included the usual mandatory blue tits but good numbers of new house sparrows and chaffinch (nearly all females) and a few blackbirds, robins, dunnocks and great tits but only a single greenfinch. Sadly the lack of greenfinch is typical as their numbers have declined due to the trichomonosis disease.
Of the retraps an blue tit first ringed as a juvenile in 2009 was a long lived record and as usual in the winter at feeding sites there were a number of retraps of birds from two or three years ago still together as a foraging group.
While we were ringing there was the noise of a pheasant shoot in the valley half a mile away and sadly a jay, ringed at Mullock in December 2009, was also shot. Credit to the organiser for saving the ring and passing it on.
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