A short couple of hours of ringing yesterday morning as I packed up the site for the winter spelled the end of our 2021 autumn season at our private site near Waxham. This area of scrub situated on the east-Norfolk coast is nicely situated for migrant passage and the odd rarity to boot (although almost invariably the rarities end up setting up shop just a stones throw from the site instead).
Our effort here isn't standardised, and is weather dependent, but we operate in a similar window of the year (primarily Sep-Oct) and some loose comparisons to last year can be made.
Autumn 2021 will probably be remembered (by me at least) for constant westerlies and just how poor the migrant passage has been, and our ringing reflected that. Despite a fair amount of effort, our total captures were down 71.2% on the 2020 season (314 in 2021 compared to 1,092 in 2020) but we ringed a similar number of species (29 in 2021 compared to 27 in 2020). Whilst captures of the largely resident species such as Blue tits and Long-tailed Tits were similar between years (and indication that effort wasn't majorly skewed), we saw a massive reduction in the numbers of Lesser Redpoll and Goldcrests in particular. On a more positive note, it was a good (for the site) year for Blackcap, Chiffchaff, and Reed Bunting passage.
| Species | New | Retraps | 2021 Total | 2020 Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Tit | 53 | 9 | 62 | 62 |
| Chiffchaff | 43 | 0 | 43 | 15 |
| Blackcap | 31 | 0 | 31 | 9 |
| Reed Bunting | 28 | 0 | 28 | 1 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 22 | 5 | 27 | 23 |
| Great Tit | 20 | 2 | 22 | 22 |
| Robin | 16 | 4 | 20 | 35 |
| Wren | 13 | 6 | 19 | 15 |
| Goldcrest | 10 | 1 | 11 | 301 |
| Meadow Pipit | 7 | 0 | 7 | 9 |
| Whitethroat | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Willow Warbler | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Chaffinch | 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Pied Flycatcher | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Dunnock | 3 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Lesser Whitethroat | 3 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Redwing | 3 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| Garden Warbler | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Song Thrush | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Jay | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Blackbird | 2 | 0 | 2 | 9 |
| Reed Warbler | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Yellow-browed Warbler | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Marsh Tit | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Woodpigeon | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Firecrest | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Siskin | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Cetti's Warbler | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Lesser Redpoll | 0 | 0 | 0 | 549 |
| Goldfinch | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Redstart | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Sparrowhawk | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Starling | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kingfisher | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grand Total | 286 | 28 | 314 | 1092 |
A handful of scarcer species for us brought some variety, being the main highlights of our relatively poor season here:
- Four Pied Flycatchers caught on 03/Sep and 06/Sep is a good haul for us and were the first we've caught in many years. They were part of what seemed like a good passage of the species this year.
- A Firecrest on 19/Sep was also a nice surprise, particularly considering the almost non-existent passage of crests this autumn.
- A juvenile Marsh Tit on 06/Sep was the first record of the species on site for many years as far as I'm aware. Probably a dispersing bird from elsewhere.
- A Yellow-browed Warbler on 07/Oct was my top bird of the season. This years passage of Yellow-brows has been dismal across the country, so to find one of these little Siberian sprites in our mist net was a welcome surprise.
