It was absolutely freezing this morning when myself, John and Adrian met up with a friend of ours, Jimmy Wagner, to do a bit of Ringing at one of Jimmy's millions of sites that he roams around, Sharpley Golf Course. As well as the tonnes of nest boxes Jimmy has put up around the Course, he also has a lovely little feeding area that regularly attracts our target species for the day, the Tree Sparrow. Despite the icy conditions we bravely put a net up next to the feeders and waited. And within seconds the net was full!!! The very first bird we took out was a cracking adult Willow Tit, a new Ringing tick for me. Unfortunately all the other birds in the net were also Tits of various species, not the hoped for Sparrows. The Sparrows were around, but they were a bit wary and hadnt ventured out from the hedgerow. In the next visit we had a nice surprise in the shape of an adult Great Spotted Woodpecker, which the cowards gave to me to Ring, but again no Sparrows. Thankfully though, it was third time lucky as the next visit produced the goods. Well, it produced ONE Tree Sparrow! But it was another new tick for me so the lads let me Ring it. Luckily it wasnt to be the only Tree Sparrow of the day, as we eventually had 15 in total. It was an excellent morning overall, and we ended the session at midday having Ringed 66 birds in total, of 11 different species. Its definitely a site we plan to return to a bit more often.
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