1st October

John has been joined by his trainer Graham for a weeks ringing at Whitburn (a tradition).  Andy has also taken two weeks holiday.  Today the winds were not as strong as over the weekend and the team managed to get most of the nets open.  It seems to be a good tit year at Whitburn, whether this is because tits have had a good breeding season (unlikely) or the lack of food up north in Scotland, we just dont know.  Falsterbo bird observatory in Sweden are recording huge numbers of blue tits at the moment due to presumably a poor beech mast crop.  1692 blue tits were ringed there yesterday, thats more birds than we ring at Whitburn in an entire year!  A flock of 20+ coal tits were trapped in one 60' mist net.  A final tally of 28 coal tit is the highest daily total of this species ringed at Whitburn since we started in 2008.

Today a total of 68 birds were ringed at Whitburn and included 28 coal tit, 12 goldfinch, 10 long tailed tit, 6 great tit, 4 dunnock, 2 song thrush, 2 blue tit and singles of robin, redstart, chaffinch and greenfinch.

coal tit © Adrian George