Another day's ringing - and more Waxwings

.... no, unfortunately not caught but again today at Barrow where the sun shone and around 50 of these birds were still gorging themselves on the berries.

Aren't they just so photogenic!

Time for a little scratch

Having sated my appetite for the cute trilling calls, I headed to Waddington Fell where the Great Grey Shrike was showing distantly away from the gunfire of the clay-pigeon shoot. I guess it will be here until next April and will entice more birders into the area once again.

On Saturday, the nets were up in the garden just before dawn on a windless, clear morning. The sun was going to be a problem later on but that didn't stop a good number of birds being caught - quite a few re-traps from last week as you would imaging but a few more from last winter and lots of new birds. Blue Tits and Bullfinches have clearly done OK this year and the number of Chaffinches ringed is certainly up.

Top net - bit too bright a day for this really but still got plenty of birds

Down the dip and two further nets

My garden shed, aka, the ringing hut/Rishton Bird Observatory (as WCA christened it)

We caught another Treecreeper, from the bill measurements we reckon it's a male but ageing and sexing these is difficult even in the had.

Birds caught (re-traps in brackets)

Robin                           (1)
Blackbird            1
Coal Tit                        (6)
Blue Tit             18        (7)
Great Tit            4         (6)
Treecreeper       1
House Sparrow   1
Chaffinch            7
Greenfinch          1
Goldfinch            7
Bullfinch             4         (2)