Sunday 27 February 2011

Cracking Carduelinae - Worsley, Gtr Manchester - 27th February 2011

Day 2 of the 'majestic' ringing weekend and we spent a morning ringing garden birds in Michael and Mary's garden Worsley, Gtr Manchester. The main target was Redpoll as this garden is lucky enough to have a large flock of Lesser Redpolls feeding regularly on their niger feeders.
This stunning Mealy Redpoll was a retrap from the last visit Kane and Chris had in the garden and fell into the net on the first round. This was really obvious from the start on the feeders as being very pale and cold in colour aswell as the obvious larger size and more black on the face. A real treat to see in the hand.

Adding a lovely amount of colour to the morning was this beautiful male Siskin, which was a first for the garden so Michael and Mary were keen to scrutinise this little gem

Above - juvenile Lesser Redpoll (left) and juvenile Mealy Redpoll (right)

above - Mealy Redpoll (left) and Lesser Redpoll (right)


myself having just extracted this wonderful juvenile female Lesser Redpoll...the very bright plumage really stood out on the feeders, so we were surprised to find it was a juvenile female

Throughout the day we caught 21 birds -
New - 6 Lesser Redpoll, 4 Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Starling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Siskin
Recap - 6 Lesser Repoll, Common (Mealy) Redpoll

Chris, Ciaran and Kane with Great Spot

Ciaran and Kane with a Lesser Redpoll and Siskin

A superb morning with great thanks to Michael and Mary for their hospitality and warm cups of tea. During the morning I rung 6 species, all of which being 'ticks' for me, which was excellent. A male sparrowhawk landed in the net at one point which would have been 'mine' if it had stayed in but sadly escaped looking a little confused.

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