• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Why so many brambling? (1 Viewer)

luke

luke

A Welsh birder in Dorset!
I was wondering why we are getting so many bramblings in south wales at the moments?? Counts into to hundreds even thousand have been made over the past few weeks at various sites around gwent and glamorgan. usually a few are seen every winter but not this many. Is it the same in other parts of the UK?
 
Thousands???? That does sound like quite a lot. They're quite irruptive depending on their food supply and some years are much better than others. If your counts are anything to go by, it could be a very good winter indeed. Send a few to my feeding station, will you?
 
earlier i saw a flock of at least 400 birds. In a conifer plantation which i thought was rather strange.
 
Like many finches, Brambling is an irruptive species with movements largely triggered by the availability of food.

When I lived in the Brecks I occasionally came across flocks 1-2000 birds, usually on flax fields near woodland blocks. There was one flock of over 2000 birds by the Tesco in Thetford.

Feeding flocks (if you can call them that) in Continental Europe have been counted in to the millions in some winters, with roost counts of p to 20 million! See the Migration Atlas for more info on this. The European Atlas probably also covers it too.

Being on the edge of the winter range we never get these sorts of numbers, but by the sounds of your flocks, and the number being reported in Cambs, its looking like a good Brmabling year here.
 
First time this year we've had them in the garden. Nice to see them. Loads of Jays too.
 

Attachments

  • brambling05-copy.jpg
    brambling05-copy.jpg
    66.5 KB · Views: 188
On a kinda similar note I've noticed large numbers of Blackbirds this year. Am I alone here? I also need to head out to find some Bramblings as I haven't seen any yet.
 
baphomet said:
On a kinda similar note I've noticed large numbers of Blackbirds this year. Am I alone here? I also need to head out to find some Bramblings as I haven't seen any yet.
Click to expand...
i would agree loads of blackbirds, fieldfares and redwings and the other day in rendlesham forest i saw a huge flock of mixed tits although mainly great tits it also contained blues long-tailed and a couple of goldcrests i,m fairly useless at estimating numbers but i reckon getting on for a hundred birds
cheers
 
luke said:
I was wondering why we are getting so many bramblings in south wales at the moments?? Counts into to hundreds even thousand have been made over the past few weeks at various sites around gwent and glamorgan. usually a few are seen every winter but not this many. Is it the same in other parts of the UK?
Click to expand...
Yes, we seem to have loads of brambling too.

I have been kind of expecting this, saying so for a few months.

Why ?

Last year we had excellent wild seed crops, including beech mast. These excellent conditions stretched across northern Europe. Coupled with exceptionally mild weather this meant migrant numbers were very small.

When I started checking beech mast this autumn I found the seed cases were empty - no kernel. I haven't found a single kernel but bear in mind I have only checked 30-40 seed cases in a small area. Summer weather is the most likely cause, and it has been pretty bad across a large area, so I was inclined to guess seed production across northern Europe would be poor.

We have good numbers of fieldfare too, and more chaffinch, waxwing and blackbird than last year. Maybe significant numbers of the blackbird and chaffinch are migrants.

Haven't seen any blackcap yet - maybe central Europe is different.

Mike.
 
around here there seems to be plenty of beech mast, our feeding station is in a beech wood and it took the birds a while before they decided to arrive at the feeders. I think its allg one now though! thousands of woodpigeons didn't help.
 
PaulE said:
i would agree loads of blackbirds, fieldfares and redwings and the other day in rendlesham forest i saw a huge flock of mixed tits although mainly great tits it also contained blues long-tailed and a couple of goldcrests i,m fairly useless at estimating numbers but i reckon getting on for a hundred birds
cheers
Click to expand...

The vast majority of the tits witnering in Britain are British birds. We don't get many coming from the continent. It was a bad breeding season for Great/Blue too, so numbers are a bit down on last year. Many tit flocks seem to be dominated by Long-tailed Tits, which had a good breeding season.
 
Poecile said:
The vast majority of the tits witnering in Britain are British birds. We don't get many coming from the continent. It was a bad breeding season for Great/Blue too, so numbers are a bit down on last year. Many tit flocks seem to be dominated by Long-tailed Tits, which had a good breeding season.
Click to expand...
Hi poecile i have heard that great and blue tits have had a bad breeding season, but locally to me anyway there seem to be plenty about, although i would agree that there are loads of long-tailed tits.I'm not seeing many tits at all on my feeders in the garden they all seem to be out in the countryside. the flock i saw the other day was easily the biggest i have seen and the majority of the birds were great tits
cheers
 
I've been birding best part of 4 years and saw my first Brambling today- a flock of over 500 at Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire. Its taken me a hell of a long time to catch up with this bird, but the huge flock like I saw today was well worth the wait.
 
I've been ringing for more years than I care to remember and only ringed my first brambling this year (incidentally the first I had seen in the hand) on the North Notts Ringing Course in November.

They've been somewhat absent in North Merseyside/S W Lancs in recent years - such has been my experience.

Peter
 
PaulE said:
Hi poecile i have heard that great and blue tits have had a bad breeding season, but locally to me anyway there seem to be plenty about, although i would agree that there are loads of long-tailed tits.I'm not seeing many tits at all on my feeders in the garden they all seem to be out in the countryside. the flock i saw the other day was easily the biggest i have seen and the majority of the birds were great tits
cheers
Click to expand...

It will probably be patchy, depending on where exacty had the wet weather - it didn't p1ss down everywhere. A bigger proportion than usual in the east are adults, as there are much fewer first years than usual.
 
Have seen separate flocks of branblings in hundreds on Exmoor/Brendons in Somerset -feeding on beech mast with some chaffinches as well.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 16 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

B
Nong Song Hong, Khon Kaen, so many Baya Weavers...?
Replies
2
Views
481
Bertus
B
T
Curlew Recovery South Lakes
Replies
0
Views
234
trw
T
J
Do theories regarding the mechanisms for Vagrancy stand scrutiny, and what does vagrancy tell us about migration?
Replies
19
Views
6K
Jon.Bryant
J
lgonz1008
South Texas: Mexican Specialties in the US
2
Replies
22
Views
2K
pbjosh
pbjosh
N
So whats going on with my hummers?
Replies
4
Views
677
Lisa W
Lisa W

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top