A little session before work saw me joined by Paul A and Karen visiting from Wales. This was a very exciting session because this would be the first time that we would be fitting Tree Sparrows with ‘PIT tags’ which mean that we can record individuals without having to retrap them and it will open up all sorts of avenues for further study of Tree Sparrows.
This site is a very large and diverse garden and the owners have lots of bird feeders and so lots of birds especially Tree Sparrows. This was to be a busy day with a large team of builders and deliveries, horses being cleaned out, three friendly dogs and the most amazing tame turkey. The Turkey was the star of the show as it was more like a dog than a dog because it followed us around on all net rounds, loved being stroked and when we were extracting birds just stood by us passively.
Ringing these big Tree Sparrow sites is probably my favourite ringing experience because I love looking up the retraps originating from our massive nest box project and when we catch anything over ten retraps we are almost guaranteed local controls giving us more information about how Tree Sparrows use the landscape. The retraps included:
3 birds ringed as nestlings at the same site last summer, an adult from last summer and two adults from December 2012
4 birds ringed as nestlings at a site 1.4km west last summer, 1 bird ringed as a nestling at this site in 2012 and one from 2010 – a four year old Tree Sparrow is a great bird
1 bird ringed as a nestling 2km south last summer
1 bird ringed as a nestling 7km south in 2012 and first retrapped at this site in August 2013.
1 bird ringed as a nestling 11km south last summer
22 Tree Sparrows fitted with PIT tags – what a win.
The Coal Tits were both ringed last March and so must be a pair and the oldest bird of the day was a Robin that we ringed on 31 December 2008 and so is a superb 6 years old. MP, PA, KM
Tree Sparrow 7 (15), Chaffinch 10, Greenfinch 7, House Sparrow 8 (1), Dunnock 8 (4), Blackbird 6, Robin 3 (2), Goldcrest 2, Coal Tit 0 (2), Great Tit 7 (1)