Posts on the blog have tailed off a bit in recent years as most of what we do is part of long-term projects, so can become a bit repetitive! Anyway, life has really changed now and anything we manage to do is a complete breath of fresh air (often literally!).
One thing I, like many other ringers, have been managing to do in lock-down, in line with guidance from BTO HQ, is ring in the garden. Normally I confine this to when the Siskins, Goldfinches and Redpolls are passing through on spring passage as I'm not massively keen on catching shed loads of local Blue Tits. This year though, bring on the Blue Tits!
There has been a surprising result to the increased garden netting in that, amazingly, this morning I managed to catch the 30th different Great Spotted Woodpecker on my garden feeders since April 2020 - where on earth are they all coming from?
Sadly, the really old one I caught just over 12 months ago, that was just a few months shy of the current British longevity record for the species, hasn't been one of them.
