10,000 birds!

Saturday's ringing session saw us surpass 10,000 birds this year, a total never reached in all the history of our group. Hoping to catch lots of Thrushes again, Mick, Simon, Mel, Ed, Jo and I met up at 05:30. The nets were up before dawn as usual. The first round was quiet and a little later in the morning a hoar frost kept the numbers low. That said, a late flurry of Redwing meant that we scraped through with 32 new and 20 retraps.  The 21 Redwing captured throughout the morning brought the total for the month up to 195 and to 409 for the year.

As our members are spread out over a few counties, the simplest way for us to have a Christmas get together is to meet up for a ringing session then head off to our local headquarters for dinner and a pint. One of our former members Ed had joined us for the day and it was great to catch up but we missed Dave who has been ill and Adam who had to work. Mick's wife Denise brightened up the dinner with stories about Mick...now we know he is far softer than he pretends to be!