Garden ringing

We've spent a good few hours trying to ring the redpolls in my Garden. This morning, I had a flock of ten in the garden first thing that included a definite male Mealy and so Mark Breaks came around with his mum and nets. No sooner had we put them up than the flock re-appeared and six of them went in the net. These were processed and all found to be Lessers - five females and one male (below).

The next batch conincided with Bill's arrival as well as a few other interested parties! These included an interesting individual with a pale head, similar to the one photographed yesterday. This could have been the same bird and turned out to be a Lesser as well - the head pattern somewhat similar with white wing bars. However it looked browner on the back and rump and had buffy flanks.
We managed to catch 32 birds of 11 species in three hours including 10 Blue and 5 Great Tits. I'll now keep an eye out for those birds to try and get some idea of the number of birds using the garden.

After that, it was a quick trip to Fishmoor Reservoir where quite a sizeable crowd had assembled in anticipation of the arrival of a first-winter Caspian Gull that had been there last night and this morning, and had been at nearby Whinney Hill Tip during the day. Suffice to say, it didn't show! There were, however at least 3500 Black-headed and 1500 Herring Gulls to look through along with a few GBBG/LBBG and Common Gulls.