Another quiet session at the marsh.  The wind, a moderate south-westerly, probably didn’t help, but the scrub nets were fairly sheltered anyway.  Thankfully the forecasted light rain showers held off.

 

In total we trapped just short of 30 birds.  A breakdown is as follows:

 

Species	New	Re-trapped	Total
Robin	1	0	1
Song Thrush	1	0	1
Blue Tit	2	3	5
Great Tit	1	1	2
Greenfinch	5	0	5
Goldfinch	7	5	12
Bullfinch	1	0	1
Reed Bunting	0	2	2
Total:	18	11	29

 

The only birds of any note were a song thrush – presumably the same bird that had been singing exuberantly close to the nets first thing – and a second calendar year male bullfinch.  Second year male bullfinches are among the easiest of birds to age, as they typically retain at least one greater covert following their post juvenile moult.  This tends to contrast clearly with replaced feathers.  Both species are regularly trapped on the marsh (particularly bullfinch) in late summer and autumn, with most comprising juveniles. 

 

A picture of the song thrush is below.

 

Song thrush

Overall the year to date continues to be better than 2014, both in terms of species and numbers.  February totals are presented in the table below.

 

Species	New	Re-trapped	Total
Green Woodpecker	1	0	1
Wren	0	1	1
Dunnock	2	5	7
Robin	2	6	8
Blackbird	0	2	2
Song Thrush	1	0	1
Goldcrest	3	0	3
Long-tailed Tit	0	9	9
Blue Tit	16	30	46
Great Tit	4	10	14
Chaffinch	19	4	23
Greenfinch	26	4	30
Goldfinch	39	18	57
Lesser Redpoll	1	0	1
Bullfinch	1	0	1
Reed Bunting	6	6	12
Total:	121	95	216

 

The goldfinch flock on the marsh has now built to in excess of 60 birds.  Greenfinches are also increasingly common, but there is no sign of a siskin flock to date.  It is very much hoped that both siskin and redpoll now start to come into the feeders, and the former repeat their successful breeding of 2014.