Constant south-westerly winds meant a severe shortage of migrants on the headland throughout October, there were a couple of days where a brief change in the wind brought small influxes of redwings but very little else.
October sees FBO hold the annual Migweek event, at which the ringers host daily public demonstrations. These give us great opportunities to engage with the public and highlight the importance of the BTO ringing scheme. All the demos were fantastically popular and our amazing team of ringers engaged with over 300 people throughout the week.
A big thank you to the team for putting in so much effort, especially given how few birds were around, the Migweek ringing team included : Jim Morgan, Tony Corscadden, Phil Bone, Jenny & Paul Butterworth, Dave Aitken, Ana Cowie, Andy Hood, Will Scott, Elliot Morley, Jo Hood, Andy Jayes, Jarred Johnson, Nathaniel Dargue and Harriet Day.
October saw us catch 510 birds of 30 different species, 416 of these were newly ringed with 94 retraps. We held 26 ringing sessions over 6 sites. For comparison, in October 2020 we caught 1510 birds of 39 species with 1284 being new and 226 retraps.
October highlights were a red-breasted flycatcher, yellow-browed warbler, 7 lesser redpolls, 2 grey wagtails and the capture of a Belgian ringed redwing.
