Goldcrests doing better than expected

After the recent cold weather, the impact on our smaller birds had been widely predicted to be quite harsh. The BTO reported on our larger birds such as Barn Owls and Buzzards as having a particularly hard time, with casualties reported. The Goldcrest is the smallest bird found in the British Isles and with body mass ranging between 4.5 and 6 grams, a species that predominantly feeds on insects and therefore a species that you wouldn't expect to fare well with prolonged periods of cold weather and snow cover.

The weather conditions today dictated that if we were to go ringing then we would have to go somewhere sheltered which meant either Crosby Hall or Ince Blundell. The snow on Friday, that thankfully melted promptly, had prevented Moxey from heading in to Ince and with the shoot on the estate that was where we headed.

The ringing session was dominated by titmice at the start with a distinct lack of Chaffinches, presumably most of these birds are still in the gardens following the cold weather. A lone Treecreeper, the first of the year, turned up at the feeding station - the first that Charlie Parker had seen in the hand.

Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)

Back to the Goldcrests. The 15m net down in the Rhodi's turned up two Blackbirds and two Goldcrests in one net round so an mp3 player and speakers was put out and a further four Goldcrests were caught. Interestingly, four of the six Goldcrests were retraps, of those retraps one was a second-year female that had bred at Ince - caught in May 2010 with a brood patch and carrying an egg. One of the other Goldcrests was ringed as a first-year male in November 2009 and has been caught on six occasions since then meaning that this bird has survived the cold weather of early 2010 and the pre-Xmas cold snap when temperatures reached a local low of -17.6 degrees.

Just as rain stopped play, Moxey picked up a new species for the site, two female Siskins coming to the feeding station. The Siskins were presumably part of the twenty-strong flock that I had seen flying as I was driving past Freshfield-cats-and-dogs-are-more-important-than-humans-Rescue Centre. This is the time of year when we would expect to start seeing more Siskins in our area, with a resident of Rimrose Valley Road, opposite Fulwood Marsh, reporting Siskins in gardens.

First-year Female Siskin (Carduelis spinus)

Goldcrest - 2 (4)
Blackbird - 1 (1)
Wren - 1
Robin - (2)
Treecreeper - 1
Siskin - 2
Great Tit - 14 (22)
Blue Tit - 16 (10)
Coal Tit - (3)
Dunnock - (1)
Chaffinch - 1

TOTAL: 38 (43)