A Saturday Roost

Yesterday I had to make the precarious trip up to the Leyland/Croston area to pick up another consignment of bird seed to keep our feeding stations going - I'm pretty sure these birds eat better than I do! The roads were still pretty icy, a small hatchback stranded on the A59 heading into Aughton missing most of the front of the car didn't seem to serve as much warning for some of the boy racers out on the roads. There wasn't much to be seen in the way of birds on the trip although there was a considerable assemblage of corvids, the majority of which appeared to be Rooks between Rufford and Croston. I managed to make it back to Liverpool in one piece and in time to collect all of the gear and pick Charlie up, his first session in a while, heading to Scarisbrick to meet up with Dan, Nigel and Finn.

We had all of the nets up by 2:30 and took some time to have a little look around and despite our location within a mature woodland, we got some good birds including Woodcock, Peregrine, Buzzard, Teal and two Raven. The woods were relatively quiet early on with very few birds about and this was reflected in the early net rounds with a single Goldcrest, a Wren and a handfull of Robins amongst the early Chaffinches.

As we approached dusk, the Chaffinches started to come into the shelter, and relative, security of the woodland in numbers. Amongst the main catch was a single female Brambling, the third of the year and a couple of Blackbirds.

I didn't take many pictures due to how busy we were, but here is a couple of the team in action:

Dan

Charlie

Finn

 
Goldcrest -   1
Wren -   1
Coal Tit -   1
Great Tit -   2
Brambling -   1
Robin -   3
Chaffinch -   46   (1)
Blackbird -   1   (1)

TOTAL:   56   (2)