Time March's On

Last Friday there was a good dump of snow but I didn't get round to posting any pictures so here are a few as a reminder of what it was like only a week ago.

The garden on Friday 4th March

This months ringing effort has largely been directed at the Siskins in the garden with a few short sessions resulting in another 35 being ringed. This has brought the number ringed over the past couple of months to 118 which is the second highest total for the garden and there is still time to catch a few more yet.

Siskins gathered in the trees across the road from the garden on 04/02/16. There are about 60 Siskins in this photo along with one or two Goldfinches. There were others feeding in the garden at the same time.

The number of Siskins peaked in last Friday's snow when up to 70 visited the feeders throughout the day. Since then numbers have dropped steadily and there were only around 25 or so today. Settled conditions are forecast for the next week so numbers are likely to drop further as more head off for the breeding grounds.

This morning I decided to have a look round the site at Billinge. I had to scrape a bit of frost off the car but the sun soon warmed things up and it even tempted a few bees out as the morning wore on. I had hoped there would be a few Meadow Pipits on the move and the outside chance of an early Wheatear but there was no visible migration to speak of and definitely no Wheatears. However, I did have an unexpected find in the form of 19 Lesser Redpolls and managed to catch 9 of them. Three of the Redpolls were already ringed with 2 being retraps that were ringed at the site last November and the other being a control (a bird ringed elsewhere). It is quite likely that this small flock has wintered in the area as it is still a bit early for Redpolls to be on the move.

Control Lesser Redpoll photographed in this morning's glorious sunshine.