Spring like

The Spring like weather continued this visit, Sunday 19 Jan.  Its been warm enough lately, and wet enough, that the seed in my feeders in the garden has sprouted!!
Luckily here at the orchard there is at least enough interest, or enough birds, to keep the feeders ticking over, though as you would expect theres no real birds of any difference or big numbers as there would be if the weather were...well...actually wintery.
I suppose the irony is that today, Monday, as im writing this, there has been a frost this morning....at last!
So not an awful lot to report in the birds department, nothing new species wise....but heres a few pictures anyway:

Lesser Redpoll

Chaffinch

....from this wing it can be aged.  The tertials hold the key (extreme left of the picture), these feathers should have a lot more colour on the tips and edges to be an adult, so it was definitely born last year.

This particular bird is also likely to be a native as the wing measurement is small at 86mm.

Poor show

Saturday 11 January...first ringing session of 2014 at the orchard....and a very quiet one.  14 birds in total including 4 Redwing.  There was around 35 Fieldfare flying around with some Redwing in tow and around double the number of Starlings.  The nets continue to remain void of Fieldfares.
Its always nice to catch a Coal Tit....

But the highlight today was....a Wren....!

..............this is not only the first Wren I have caught at the orchard.....

 .....but also the first AA ring sized bird which is pretty amazing as I am used to catching a number of Goldcrest during the winter as they have always seemed relatively regular in orchards previously....

...but im not complaining as Wrens are rather fabulous little birds.....

Frustration

Grrrrr!!
First decent ringing morning for some time and a frost put paid to any ringing at the orchard today.  With the heavy rain of the past, well, seemingly forever, the nets, when furled (rolled up) hold a lot of water, so a frost basically turned them in to frozen hard lines of netting with no chance of opening.....
To say this holiday period has been frustrating would be an understatement and I reckon there are plenty of birders and ringers out there feeling the same.....