The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I ringed 12 today at a garden near Usselby Plantation. Market Rasen. Interestingly, their weights varied from 11.9g to 15.8g. Generally speaking the top weight birds are ready to migrate some distance. I suspect there could be a good numbers passing through in the next three months. Watch this space!

Same here at Gainsborough Stuart. Ringed 10 on Saturday though weights ranged 12.9 to 13.6 with one at 15.0 (he had been gorging on sunflower hearts for some time). Interestingly most were adult males.

Steve

Hi Stuart,

In Bob Sheppard’s garden next to Bourne Wood, Siskins arrived over Christmas, and numbers are now decreasing (only 11 caught today). The two heaviest birds, with visible fat reserves were retraps from 2nd Jan, and are clearly packing on weight before they move on. I expect most to move out shortly, before the main influx of returning birds arrive in the next month or so. Judging by the amount of Siskins around in autumn and over winter, I expect there to be huge numbers around in March (better get your order in for more size A now…….)
Ours are mainly first years (though many/most have moulted tails) and we have only had slightly more males than females.

Cheers,

Alan

I ringed a further 22 Siskins today at Usselby - 15 males and 7 females - maximum weight was 13.2 and all but two of the males were adults. There were many more in the adjacent Forestry conifers.

An excellent day spent ringing today. An early morning start at a wood south of Bourne resulted with 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers and 2 Nuthatches ringed. Called in at Bob Sheppard’s garden in Bourne late morning where we caught 101 Siskins and…….and two more Nuthatches!!

Siskins comprised 67 males and 34 females and at least 64 birds were first-year birds.

Alan

Of interest on Saturday, was a retrap Siskin at Bourne - originally ringed there in April 2006. It would be interesting to know where is was last spring, as there were none passing through Bourne last year.

Alan

There has been a constant flow of Siskins to the feeders in the garden near Market Rasen since my first posting and I've now ringed 180 since January. The 181st was an adult male bearing a Stavanger (Norway) ring! This was the first control!

I hope you get the ringing details of your Norweigan bird quickly - we are still waiting for ringing details of a Czech ringed Siskin that we caught in March 2006!
This year, we weren't doing very well for controls, we had one British one on January 2nd, then have had no more until this last week, when we have caught another five British controls - two of which were from the same sequence and only two ring umbers apart. Bob and I have now ringed over 500 this year. Several birds over Easter weighed in at a whopping 16+ grams.

Alan

Out of 54 Siskins caught yesterday, only 3 were re-traps. There was an incredible weight range varying from 11.7 to an unprecedented 18.2 grammes. I even double checked on both electronic scales and pessola scale. This is the heaviest Siskin I have come across and the first over 17 grammes

As I anticipated in my original post there has been a continuous movement of Siskins through the Market Rasen area. I caught a further 21 this morning with just 1 control and no re-traps which brings the total to 255. Weights varied from 12.1 to 17.7 so there will be some about for a bit longer.

Interesting that Stuart is still catching Siskins. Ours at Bourne appear to have all gone......so there could be 700 Siskins ringed this year in Bob Sheppard's garden at Bourne, heading northwards towards Market Rasen. We assume they will all be heading north, but ........ strangely, we caught one of Stuart's ringed on 4th March, three weeks later at Bourne, some 70 km to the south. It may be that this individual may have been panicked into heading south when the cold weather struck. Other Siskins caught at Bourne this year included individuals ringed at Thetford, King's Lynn and Geddington (Northants).

Alan

Fascinating info lads, i cannot remember another year for the volume of siskins being recorded (700 ringed in a garden in bourne ).
I hope from the numbers good info is returned for recoveries they cannot all just disappear. The north south movements show they quickly move back and forth with weather conditions also i think stuarts 18 gram bird must have wintered around Melton Mowbray where the pies are.
SORRY STUART, i just cannot help it, but fascinating info guys, keep up the good work.
Terry Whalin

Alan Ball's prophecy was right! The Siskin I controlled at Market Rasen on April 8th was ringed by Alan at Bourne on 31st March some 70 kilometres (south)away. It weighed in at 18.2 grammes which is the heaviest Siskin I've caught out of 1300 over the years! There are still one or two in the area but the majority have moved on.

Just to prove that some/most? of the Siskins around in Feb/Mar were of Scottish origin, one of our Siskins, ringed at Bourne in February, was recaptured by another ringer in Inverness in May.

Alan

I went to my ringing site near Osgodby yesterday and caught 37 birds including 8 Siskins. All were juveniles and only one had started its' post juvenile moult. A fair bet they bred in the adjacent Forestry Commission plantation.