As the weather at the weekend had been dominated by strong south-westerly winds, we had been unable to get a session in at Oxwich.  With the weather settling down, however, we managed to get in a quick visit to the marsh before the group turned its attention to more serious concerns i.e. catching up on the long-running Re-trapping Adults for Survival (RAS) project on pied flycatcher at Cwm Clydach and the two Constant Effort Sites (CES).

The weather while better than of late still wasn’t ideal.  A light north-westerly wind picked up over the morning and, together with smaller numbers of birds visiting the feeders, is likely to have limited the catch.  Only 37 birds were trapped, and for the first time in 2014 re-captured birds outnumbered new birds ringed.  The breakdown was as follows:

Goldfinch

Evidence of local breeding was confirmed in siskin during the last session.  No fledged greenfinches or goldfinches have been trapped to date however, although it is clear from the brood patches of the females that there is a good population of greenfinches breeding locally.  Evidence for locally breeding goldfinch is more scant, and the large flocks that we present in late winter and early spring disappeared a few weeks back.