Bird ringing in my garden!

Today, with a certified ringer training me, I had the amazing opportunity to ring the birds in my garden!

In total we caught 68 – with still many that we didn’t have time to ring! You would be surprised at how many birds come to your garden!

I was very surprised that we caught 28 Blue tits! And I have still spotted ones in the garden that haven’t been rang! I originally thought I would maybe have 15 Blue tits visiting the garden – as I had only seen the most of 8 at one time. But I soon found out that 8 at a feeder could be feeding 40!

We also got 12 Great tits, 2 Coal tits, 2 Nuthatches (both male so there is definitely more!), 2 Marsh tits (both juveniles so again definitely more) and lots more different species!

The absolute highlight for me was catching 2 Great spotted woodpeckers! One juvenile and one female – I knew we had woodpeckers visiting (one male, female and at least 2 juveniles) but I never thought we would catch one on the first try! It was amazing – they are actually surprisingly small when you hold them, but they have massive talons and their beaks are very strong!