Blimey!

I have just been collating my final ringing figures from last year and it makes interesting reading...to me anyway!
Most of my ringing activities took place either in the garden here or at our main site near Burnham Market although there was the odd excursion onto other sites.

By the end of the year I had extracted a total of 1612 birds, processed 780, and ringed 1161, a slight decrease from 1225 in 2010.

The garden has had an excellent this year although the last couple of were very quiet (15 new birds) mainly down to the dark evenings and windy weather. A total of 482 were ringed in the garden but it is the greenfinch figures really stand out. 235 birds were ringed and most of these were during the late summer and were youngsters. What is particularly interesting is the fact that most of them moved off to other areas with only 10 being re-trapped. Other high numbers included 48 blue tit, 48 goldfinch, 44 blackbird, 1 chiffchaff but the highlight of the year was the marsh tit I caught in March.

The main highlight for me was the opportunity to get involved with the pulli (nestling) ringing at Kelling Heath and especially the chance to ring some scarce birds. I was lucky enough to colour-ring stonechat, woodlark and Dartford warbler chicks in the nest.

This year I hope to set up a new ringing site on the coast which should give the opportunity to catch some acro warblers (something we don't do much of) and possibly some migrants and hopefully I may get back a few greenfinch controls!