Amongst the Clouds of Pollen...

I met Charlie bright and early this morning at Crosby Hall for another session in the woods. We had a brief and relatively unsuccessful session last week, cut short by incoming rain squalls, so we were hoping for am improvement this week. John Dempsey posted earlier in the week about Chiffchaff singing on Rimrose so we had our ears peeled from the outset for any early passage birds moving through. No joy however.

Sticking with the usual nets, we had all the nets up within the first hour but we got off to a slow start. Blue Tit, Coal Tit and couple of retrap Goldcrest making up the early numbers. There were a number of Song Thrush calling throughout the morning, although none made their presence felt, along with a couple of Blackbirds, once more however, we had a low turnout of thrushes with only one retrap Blackbird, originally ringed in 2009.

 Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)

A short five minutes of drizzle left us briefly worried for the future of the session, but it quickly passed and the Sun emerged leaving a very spring like feel. Conversation wandered to the potential of spring, the possibilities of early migrants and the plethora of opportunities that our variety of sites might offer. Daydreaming over, the Goldfinches started to arrive, as did a retrap Nuthatch, a male originally ringed in 2009.

Nuthatch (Sitta europaea)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

By midday, we were basking in the balmy sunshine getting sprinkled with pollen from the Yew trees - Charlie looked like the before shot from a Head and Shoulders (other leading brands are available) commercial. By the time that we packed away, we had added a retrap Treecreeper, a couple more Goldcrest and a few more Goldfinches to the total.

Goldcrest -   2   (2)
Wren -   1
Treecreeper -   (1)
L.T.Tit -    (2)
Coal Tit -   (1)
Goldfinch -   11
Chaffinch -   2
Blue Tit -   11   (10)
Great Tit -   2    (4)
Robin -   3   (3)
Greenfinch -   2
Nuthatch -   (1)
Blackbird -   (1)


TOTAL:   34   (25)

Later on this afternoon, I headed in to Brook Vale to start the feeding station up again. The Rangers had been into the reserve and had completed some management work on the marginal willows as part of the ongoing work to manage the willow carr and preserve the wetland. Hopefully some more of the isolated willows within the reed bed will be removed over the coming week or so. As I was leaving, a flock of thirty-odd Siskin were perched in the Alders near Beach Road but that was about all that was about.