It seems like an age since I last managed to get out. The weather has been dire: so bad that, despite the lid being firmly locked in place, the rain had got into my seed bin, resulting in some of it going mouldy – so I have had to scrap what was left. It did mean that my winter supplementary feeding has ended early. I expected it to have an impact on numbers caught, and it did. Also, on the only decent day midweek I managed to be ill: so frustrating!
Anyway, with Saturday providing a mix of sunshine, rain and hail plus a constantly high wind, we decided on a Sunday session. I was joined by Laura and family plus Justine, and we went to Red Lodge, starting at 6:30. Because I didn’t have the feeding station in operation we moved the net site to the usual summer location:
We set the following nets:
We had the nets open by about 7:15 and started catching straight away. Unfortunately, we were not catching large numbers of anything. Slightly galling, but we had a chat with one of the regular dog walkers, David, with his lovely Black Labrador, Denver, regaling us with his stories of the numbers of Goldfinch and, particularly, Siskin on the sunflower hearts on the feeders in his garden (on the first diagram you will see Gospel Oak Farm marked: he lives in one of the cottages along that road, so only a few hundred metres away). Needless to say, we saw neither hide nor hair (or should that be “feather nor scale” for birds) of either species this morning.
We did catch a couple of Chiffchaff, heard calling almost as soon as we arrived on site, but apart from that it was pretty standard fare and in small numbers. The list for the day was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 2; Great Tit 1(2); Coal Tit 1; Long-tailed Tit 1(2); Wren 2(1); Robin 1; Blackbird 1; Chiffchaff 2. Totals: 12 birds ringed from 9 species and 5 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 17 birds processed from 9 species.
A small catch but, given that the team for today was very inexperienced, it meant that they could work in a relaxed environment and I could cover off things like what to look for as birds come into breeding condition: as the Blackbird, Robin and Long-tailed Tits all were. We also had plenty of time to chat together, have a good gossip, and interact with the odd passer-by.
Frustratingly, there were a lot of birds around: but all up in the canopy. We had Nuthatches calling and flitting around overhead, Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming, Chiffchaffs chiffing and Song Thrush singing all around us.
We closed the nets and took down at 11:30, leaving site just after midday.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 