We have made four visits this autumn and winter to Jerry and Barbara's garden on the edge of Silverdale. It is ideally situated on the edge of a large block of woodland and very well provided with a variety of feeders. Using just two nets we have caught 307 birds of these 34 were retraps so involved 273 different individuals over the four visits.
The woodland setting is reflected in the species caught with 99 Blue Tits, 32 Great Tits, 32 Coal Tits, 6 Marsh Tits, 5 Nuthatch and 7 Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Surprisingly also 13 Dunnock and 8 Robins. These figures are for the total individual birds. Jerry tells me that when doing Garden Bird Watch the most Blue Tits they have seen at once is just 8 along with 6 each of Coal and Great Tits but our ringing gives some idea off the numbers visiting their well stocked feeders.
Several of the retraps show movements between our other ringing sites in the area. Outstanding is a Blue Tit ringed 2 km away at Leighon Moss and re-trapped 7 years and 177 later. It had not been re-trapped in the intervening period.
John
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