Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

I went out to top up the bird feeders yesterday, having already done so on Monday, but with how the weather has turned in the last week, supplementary feeding has never been more important so far this winter. At 11:30 yesterday the back roads were treacherous: I had to remind myself of the skills I learnt when I learned to drive up in Northumberland! Even though, I had one nasty snaking experience on the way out and, on the way back, the car decided to go straight on at two junctions, despite my only driving at 20mph! So I emailed the team and suggested that they should seriously consider not coming this morning if they were at all concerned about driving in freezing conditions, especially as the forecasts were all predicting -6^oC first thing. Fortunately, whilst it was cold, it was -1^oC when we arrived at 7:30 but, by the time the nets were open at 8:30, it was above freezing and actually a higher temperature than last Wednesday’s session.

So the nutters in the team, besides myself, are Laura (and Adam) and Pete. We set the same nets as last time we visited this site. The birds started coming in straight away, and how they came in! We were extremely busy all morning, to the point that we decided to empty and shut the nets at 11:00: and took out another 35 birds.

As before, the catch was Blue Tit heavy, but the most pleasing titmouse capture was Coal Tit. We had our second largest haul ever, and the largest since 19^th January 2018! However, that catch of 26 birds comprised nine ringed and 17 retraps. Our catch today, 16 ringed and just three retraps, is the biggest catch of unringed Coal Tits we have had. The previous best was 12 ringed in 2013 on the 30^th November 2019.

One other titmouse bonus:

Alongside our first ringed Marsh Tit in our first session of the year, we retrapped four others! Three ringed early last year and one in 2024.

Our third Redwing of the winter duly arrived early on, but no others hit the nets. The list for the session was: Blue Tit 51(8); Great Tit 10(5); Coal Tit 16(3); Marsh Tit 1(4); Long-tailed Tit 5; Robin 3(2); Redwing 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 88 birds ringed from 8 species and 22 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 110 birds processed from 8 species. This is our biggest ever catch in January at any of our Braydon Forest sites, a total of 53 Braydon Forest January ringing sessions!

Contrary to the forecasts, at no point did the temperature drop below freezing. At about 11:15 the sun came out and things warmed up quite nicely. About 11:45 the forecast gusts of wind arrived and, coming from the north it was very cold. By the time we had packed away we were pretty chilled, and I don’t mean “laid back”.

With the nets all closed we got on with processing birds. We had quite a few to process as, in the cold, we check the nets more frequently, as the birds are warmer in the bags than in the nets, so we had a fair backlog to process. Laura’s hubby Mark had turned up and cracked on helping me with the scribing. We finally finished processing at close to half-past-midday and set about taking down the nets and packing away. We finally left site at about 13:15

* As a postscript: I had a check on the number of Coal Tits ringed within our group since 1^st January 2013 and this number of 16 is the largest number ringed ever within the group.

An excellent December, our best yet, beating the previous best, 2020, by 12 birds!  That year’s came from 30 species. This year’s total came from only 27 species.  This is the comparison with last December:

Added to our list this year were Corn Bunting, Starling, Tree Sparrow and Yellowhammer.  Missing from the list were Bullfinch, House Sparrow, Jay, Linnet, Meadow Pipit, Redpoll and Siskin.

The key differences are a 43% increase in the number of birds ringed and a 46% increase in retrapped birds, albeit from two species fewer ringed and four species fewer retrapped.

It is pretty clear what the main difference is: Blue Tits have clearly had a tremendously good month.  That split into 264 juveniles vs 60 adults ringed.  Compare with 2024: 107 juveniles to 72 adults ringed.  More informative is the ratio of adults to juveniles.  In 2025 the ratio is 18.5% to 81.5%, whereas in 2024 it was 40.2% to 59.8%.  It looks like it was a good breeding season for Blue Tits this year.  The annual results will show more.

Great Tits showed an identical number of retrapped birds but 29 more ringed.  That comprised 18 adults and 65 juveniles, as opposed to 9 adults and 45 juveniles in December 2024. The ratios are 21.7% to 78.3% in 2025 compared to 16.7% to 83.3% adults to juveniles in 2024.  So it looks as though Great Tits had done a bit better in 2024 than this year.  I will do full year comparisons in the next couple of weeks: I have a number of records to come in yet for earlier in the year.

Marsh Tits, with three ringed compared to one last December and 19 retrapped compared with just four last December underlines what an excellent year the species had in 2025.  In the whole of 2024 we ringed four adults and 16 juveniles. In 2025 we have ringed 14 adults and 39 juveniles. This is our group’s best ever year for the species.  To put it into perspective, last year 44 Marsh Tits were ringed in the whole of Wiltshire, and we ringed 19 of them.  We have ringed nine more than were ringed in the entire county last year.  My catch has more than doubled, from 19 ringed in the Braydon Forest in 2024 to 39 ringed in 2024, adding to the catch this year are Jonny’s sites at Biss Wood and Green Lane Wood and his new site at Catcomb Wood.  

Although Robin totals were close, the majority this December were ringed: 3 adults to 13 juveniles, compared with just seven last December: 2 adults to 5 juveniles.  Ratios again: 18.8% to 81.2% in 2025; compared with 28.6% to 71.4%.  It will be interesting to see how that works out over the course of the year.  My thought is that smaller insectivorous birds have had a much better breeding season than larger carnivorous / omnivorous species.

Last piece from me: Jonny caught a single Corn Bunting at a farmland site near Hilmarton back in January 2024. He has caught no more until this December when he caught five in one session. Lovely and the first bird I ever ringed!

Anyway, an excellent December, even if we have all been pecked to pieces by Blue Tits.  All the details are there.

Happy New Year everybody

The last session of the year was held in the Firs. It was a cold start -3^oC: the inside of my car was frozen, despite the cold weather cover! However, with the group I had coming out from a range of places, mostly south Gloucestershire, I knew we could handle the process without harm to the birds and, I am pleased to say, the team proved me right. I was joined for the session by Laura and Adam, Steph and daughter Lillie (Lillie ringed her first bird at age 6, she is now 16 and an excellent ringer) and Pete. Bea came along with Steph, to keep us entertained! With six of us to extract we could stay on top of the extractions and processing.

The Trust had been in the Firs, doing some more management, opening up the central glade. This resulted in the area down the slope being unsuitable for nets, so we extended the bottom nets by an additional 18m. I had planned to go further. However, this took us to where the bulk of the management work has been carried out: massive clearance of the undergrowth and small trees, leaving just a wide expanse of old Beech and Oak and not suitable for netting. In reality it is probably just as well, given how the morning panned out.

As ever, the first bird out of the nets was a Blue Tit, before they had been opened! Just like recent sessions: Blue Tit was the predominant species. Fortunately, the majority were retrapped birds.

The list for the day was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1(1); Nuthatch (1); Blue Tit 27(38); Great Tit 8(9); Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit (3); Long-tailed Tit 2; Dunnock (2); Robin 1(4); Redwing 1; Blackbird 2; Goldcrest (1); Chaffinch 6(1). Totals: 48 birds ringed from 8 species and 61 birds retrapped from 10 species, making 109 birds processed from 13 species.

We had multiple highlights: no Redwing all autumn and winter and now two in two sessions: very happy with that. Seven Chaffinch in one session is our best haul in the Firs since I started ringing there in 2012, and then when I started training in 2015, my trainees started helping me. Looking at the other Braydon Forest sites, the only one that has ever had a bigger catch of this species is Ravensroost Wood: on three occasions at the winter feeding stations, but not since 2018.

Also somewhat ironic: having not caught and ringed a Blackbird since 9^th October this year, we caught and ringed one in our last session and another today. Perhaps better than that, we hadn’t caught and ringed any Great Spotted Woodpecker since the 9^th September and have now ringed one in each of the last two sessions.

It is quite remarkable that the last two sessions in this wood have produced 222 birds from 14 species. My first two sessions in the Firs, in 2012, caught just 29 birds from 7 species. This year has produced more birds than in any previous year: 583 birds processed from 23 species. The second best year was 2019: with 427 birds processed, from 21 species.

We did a final round and shut the nets at 11:30, processed the final 20 birds and, with so many hands to pack away it was all done very quickly and we were away from site just after midday.

A final note: once again a local hunt, probably the Vale of the White Horse Hunt, allowed their hounds into the wood chasing a fox which, I am pleased to say, managed to escape their jaws. This is criminal activity and the sooner the trail hunting lie is banned the better. As well as foxes and badgers nearby, that wood has roosting Woodcock and a host of other wildlife. It is a nature reserve: not a playground for perverts! Unfortunately, the Wiltshire PCC is pro-hunting and has been proven to have misrepresented sab activities, so dealing with hunting crimes is deprioritised for Wiltshire police – a commonplace situation within UK policing unfortunately.

With Wednesday being blown away by astonishingly strong winds, I was a bit worried about the forecast for this morning. It was for it to be 12 to 14mph, with gusts to 20mph, between 7:00 and 10:00. That was to be followed with base winds of 15 to 20mph and gusting to 29 to 35mph. Unfortunately, they got it absolutely correct and we had to start shutting the nets at 10:30. By then we had caught a decent number of birds, with good variety and a few top catches for this winter.

I was joined for the morning by Steph for the first time for a long time (with daughter Bea and, later, hubby Stuart), Claire, also for the first time for an age, Pete, then Laura and Adam arrived, later than the others as arranged, as they had to make their way back from a family Christmas in Winchester (hubby Mark arrived about 9:00) and, by the time my new friend Ralph turned up with his Mum and his Grandad (see the last Somerford Common West blog piece), it seemed like quite a family affair!

Because of the size of the ringing team we had out, I decided to set some additional nets. We set the following:

It started well, the first bird in the nets, ride 2, before they were even opened, was a Marsh Tit. Not only that, it was a new one: number 39 for the year! We will be in the Firs on Wednesday: I am so hoping for number 40!

As soon as the nets were open the birds started piling in, and it was very busy for the two hours that we had them open. I went to extract a Great Tit from ride 5. Whilst doing that, I looked along to ride 6 and noticed a number of birds hitting the nets. Ride 6 is not one we use often but in that first round I extracted eight Long-tailed Tits and a Robin. However, the best bird I extracted from that ride was this:

Our first Redwing of the autumn! To put this into perspective, it has been our worst autumn / winter catch ever: 25 birds fewer than this time last year! We will need to catch six more in the Firs on Wednesday to equal our worst ever previous autumn / winter result.

The rest of the team were extracting from the nets around the feeding station. I got the better of the deal: no Blue Tits!

As I was walking back from those ride 6 extractions, a Blackbird flew into ride 5. This is the first Blackbird that we have ringed since the 9th October! That is quite an astonishing gap between catches. It is thirteen blank sessions since we caught one! We have ringed 33 so far this year, which is about average, but the longest gap we have had between catches.

The next good bird was this, we heard it call before it hit the net, Laura went after it straight away and extracted this noisy fellow:

They are always the noisiest birds we extract. If there was a long gap between Blackbirds ringed, it is trivial compared to the gap between Great Spotted Woodpeckers: 18 blank sessions. That said, this year we have had our biggest haul of the species since 2017, with 17 ringed so far. The best was 24 in 2017, and 19 in 2013. So our third best year for them. but front-loaded.

The list from the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 27(7); Great Tit 2; Coal Tit 4(3); Marsh Tit 1(2); Long-tailed Tit 6(4); Robin 1(1); Redwing 1; Blackbird 1; Goldcrest 4. Totals: 48 birds ringed from 10 species and 17 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 65 birds processed from 10 species.

It is a shame that we had to close up early: I am pretty certain that we would have hit the 100 mark if we had kept going to midday. I am also pretty confident that we would have added some finches to the list. We did catch a male Chaffinch but, although its legs were not in bad condition, they looked as if they were beginning to show signs of Fringilla papillomavirus infection, so we erred on the side of caution, released it and cleaned up. On my way in, and on my way out again, I did see several small flocks of Redpoll which we do seem to catch post-11:00 at this site.

With everybody mucking in to help us take down, it did not take long to get everything put away, and we were off site by 11:30. It would be churlish to complain about the weather as, for once, the forecast was pretty well spot on. I hope we have the same next Wednesday for our fourth successive record year.

This was our first visit to this site since the 8th November. Since then there has been a significant amount of forestry management taking place in the northern end of the wood and the site has been out of bounds to the general public since then, and still is. However, the Trust gave me permission to run a session there, I think anticipating that the work would be completed (good joke!!!). I was contacted by the reserve manager earlier in this week telling me that I could work in the southern end of the wood but that the northern end was too dangerous for us to work there. It was also going to be all done using horse drawn logging. Funny horses: they must have had very large wheels and left huge great trenches in the path.

Prior to the session I planned to go along a couple of days before to set up the two feeding stations I have used before. Unfortunately, Thursday was washed out with absolutely torrential rain, so I didn’t get there until Friday morning, where I met the big green “horse”: with a large bucket on the front and a grabber on the rear and a very large trailer. As my 13-year old trainee put it “are you sure it wasn’t a deer named John”! In your own time: he’s a bit young for Dad jokes. Fortunately, he was removing the remaining logs from the car park, so when we turned up this morning there was plenty of space for parking for the team. We agreed to meet at 7:30. I turned up 10 minutes early to find that the place was still out of bounds to the general public and all locked up. That meant we could have a session without being worried by dog walkers or disapproving members of the public: I have a key for the outer gates and the code for the inner padlock.

I was joined for the morning by David, Laura, Adam and Pete for the ringing, and Daniel and Mark to help set up. Daniel was off at 10:00, Mark giving him a lift to Kemble station before returning to help take down. We set the usual nets, only the feeding station had to be moved to the north of the track, as the entire quadrant where we had it before has been coppiced and all of the undergrowth cleared:

The feeding stations, comprising one peanut feeder and one seed feeder, were positioned between net sets 1 and 2.

We had the nets open by 8:45 and took our first Blue Tit out of the nets before they were actually opened! It wasn’t as busy as I would have liked. Not having had the feeding station operational whilst the woods were closed to us, nor being able to get it set up until yesterday morning, I had hoped that the disturbance from the forestry works would have driven the birds into this area of the wood.

The catches were small but regular. To be fair, after the very busy last few sessions, it was quite nice to take it a bit easier. Our list for the session was as follows: Blue Tit 11(4); Great Tit 6(1); Coal Tit (3); Marsh Tit (2); Wren 1; Dunnock (1); Goldcrest 2(2). Totals: 20 birds ringed from 4 species and 13 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 33 birds processed from 7 species.

We closed the nets and took down at 11:30, after a somewhat more relaxed session in recent times, and were away from site by 12:15.

I was disappointed that we didn’t catch a new Marsh Tit. It is one of our key sites for the species in most years, only it is somewhat lagging behind the others this year. We did retrap a couple but I suspect the majority are in the north end of the wood, where the older woodland is found.

As I have been banging on about for a while, Marsh Tits are having a good year in the Braydon Forest. In fact they are having a good year across our group, with 51 ringed, compared with the 44 in the whole of Wiltshire last year. It has been our best year for individuals caught as well: 52 in the Braydon Forest and 66 across the group.

However, it seems that Blue Tits are also having a good year. We have ringed 586 so far this year! Last year was 353 and the previous best year was 575 in 2013. It has clearly been an excellent breeding season for them: with 358 juveniles ringed, compared with 89 in 2022, 94 in 2023 and 96 in 2024. Across the group it has also been a phenomenal year for them, with 2159 ringed across all sites, compared with 1694 in 2024 and 1,440 in 2023. Those are the best three years for this species. In terms of juvenile ringed there has been a significant increase: 1,264, compared to 568 in 2024.

I would love to know what has caused this spike in numbers for both Blue and Marsh Tits! Anecdotally, it has been a good year for insects, and I wonder if this is the reason for the increased success of these small insectivorous birds?

Interestingly, Great Tits in the Braydon Forest have not shown the same increase: a 25% increase on last year (213 vs 159) but only a 10% increase on 2023 (191). That said, the number of juveniles ringed (111) is the highest since 2019 (120). 2021 (73), 2022 (53) and 2024 (48) were particularly poor for juvenile Great Tits, with 2020 and 2023 having 90+ juveniles ringed. Looking at the West Wilts catches as a whole, however, it seems the other woods further south in the county have had a much better showing, with 844 ringed this year, compared with 799 in 2024 and 677 in 2023. The increase in juveniles across the group is also significant, with 2025 being the best year ever for ringing juveniles, at 513, compared with 354 in 2024.

If I have a concern about any of the titmice species it is Coal Tit in the Braydon Forest. The numbers ringed are higher than for Marsh Tit, but not much more. Their numbers have declined over the 13 years that I have been monitoring these woodlands. That said, they are a bird of least concern across their range and green-listed in the UK, so perhaps it is just our habitats that are not suitable. On average we ring 57 per annum: this year it was 55, so close to average. That said, we ringed 30 juveniles this year, our best since we ringed 50 in 2019. Last year we only ringed 10 juveniles in the whole year. Mind, if it is a concern for the Braydon Forest, it is more so for the rest of the group, with 62% of this year’s catch ringed being caught in the Braydon Forest. The average catch ringed across the 13 years is 89, so across the period, the Braydon Forest provides some 64% of all Coal Tits ringed by our group. When it comes to juveniles, the group have ringed a total of 48 this year, so it looks as though the ringing proportions for this year are pretty much identical, at 62.5%. Overall, the Braydon Forest produces 66% of the Group’s juvenile Coal Tits.

It is not often that I am relieved when we have to curtail a session due to adverse weather, but today came pretty close. As our last visit to Red Lodge on the 28th November resulted in two of us catching 103 birds in just 4 nets, totalling just 57m of net. 69 0f those were Blue Tits. I wouldn’t have enjoyed a repeat!

Having been away in County Durham, Kinross and north of Aberdeen for the last 10 days, much as it was a pleasure spending time with long standing friends and family, waking up to see Red Squirrels outside the window, and as much as I enjoyed breakfast rolls with sausage and haggis, I was just pleased to get out ringing again. The forecast for the session was for it to be dry until 11:00! I think you all know what I think of weather forecasts: this was no better. It started spitting with rain at 9:30 and by 10:15 everything we decided to empty and close the nets as we went, because we were all getting wet. I was joined by Laura and Pete for the session. We met up at 7:00 to set the nets, to ensure we got a couple of hours in before the rain started. The nets we set were the same as last time, plus two additional 18m nets along the main path. The two additional nets were very unproductive: just five birds caught, but one was my personal star bird of the morning, more of which later.

Having been away I didn’t get to top up the bird feeders until yesterday morning but, just like on the last session, the feeding station nearest our ringing station had attracted plenty of action: the seed feeder having been reduced by one-third and the peanut feeder by three-quarters. The feeding station further away showed very little sign of activity and, just like last time, the nets nearest them were the absolute busiest.

As with last time, the catch was mainly Blue Tit, but a smaller collection of Great Tits, this time. Blue Tits must have had one heck of a good breeding seas0n this year: in the last two sessions in Red Lodge we have ringed 101 juveniles and 11 adults! I know some ringers don’t ring Blue Tits, because of the volume but, then, at one time the BTO did not allow the ringing of House Sparrows, because they were so common, and we all know what happened with them!

We did catch a female Chaffinch, but her legs were crusty and diseased, so we let her go. Later, as we were shutting the nets, I extracted one that had nice clean legs and we were able to ring it.

As mentioned, we started closing the nets at 10:15: emptying each and closing as we went. That left us with about 40 birds to process in the damp and miserable conditions. However, whilst Laura and Pete were extracting birds from the main nets, I went to check the nets on the central track. Up to this time they had only produced one bird: a new juvenile female Great Tit. However, this time I found another bird:

I am just astonished at what is happening with Marsh Tits in the Braydon Forest this year. We have ringed twice as many as we did in 2024 and ringed 10 more than we did in our previous best year: 2017! Where we will end up, I don’t know but we have sessions scheduled for Ravensroost Wood, Webb’s Wood, Somerford Common and the Firs before the end of the year. This is how it currently looks compared to previous years:

Interestingly, we also recaptured all four of the Marsh Tits we ringed in our last session in Red Lodge!

The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1(1); Blue Tit 46(9); Great Tit 2(6); Coal Tit 1(2); Marsh Tit 1(4); Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 53 ringed from 7 species and 22 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 75 birds processed from 7 species.

Once we had finished processing the birds it was close to 11:00 but with so few nets to take down we were away by 11:40: wet, cold but quite happy. When you look at it, we had the nets open and active for just over 2 hours and caught 75 birds (77 if you count the scaly-legged Chaffinch and the Dunnock that escaped when someone accidentally opened the pocket it was sat it). Our previous session produced 103 birds in four hours: that is a lot of birds this site is producing. Ironically, the local community, all of whom feed birds in their gardens, aren’t seeing lots of titmice on their feeders, but do mention the large numbers of Goldfinch they have, and how Greenfinch and Chaffinch numbers have started to recover: just like my garden really! Shame that we don’t catch more of them in our ringing area.

I was joined by Miranda and Laura for today’s session, squeezed in between the wind and rain Monday and Tuesday and my wife and I heading off to Scotland for 10 days holiday. We met at 7:30 and set the usual nets. We didn’t rush: it was -2^oC when we arrived on site and I don’t like opening the nets until the temperature is above zero. They were opened just after 8:30. We did our rounds every 15 minutes, to ensure that birds weren’t left in the nets for any length of time: it is warmer in a bag!

I hadn’t been out to top up the feeders since last week, so did so this morning whilst we were setting up the site. It didn’t seem to have discombobulated the local birds and we started catching straight away.

The surprise: we caught two Chiffchaff. We caught the first at just after 10:00 and a second just before we packed up at 11:30. We have never caught them in Somerford Common in December before. We had one at Somerford Common in November 2024, but that is it. As for the Braydon Forest: we have had only one other record in December: at Blakehill Farm on 2016.

As expected, we had a good haul of Blue Tits. Slightly unfortunate not to ring another Marsh Tit. We did manage to recapture four of them, but, frustratingly, we had seen an unringed bird in the area whilst setting up the nets. One thing that I have noted: Marsh Tits seem to be amongst the first birds at the feeders in the morning. Perhaps that is a strategy for avoiding the more numerous Blue and Great Tits. That said, I have never seen any aggressive behaviour between the Tit species at feeders. This morning we had three of them between 9:00 and 10:00 and the last in our last round at 11:30.

Another nice catch was Chaffinch: four ringed and one retrap. They have always been regular around the feeders at Somerford Common in December, but last year we only caught the one, so this is a nice return to form.

The list for the morning was: Nuthatch 1; Blue Tit 10(7); Great Tit 2(4); Coal Tit 3(3); Marsh Tit (4); Dunnock (1); Robin 1; Chiffchaff 2; Chaffinch 4(1). Totals: 23 birds ringed from 7 species and 20 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 43 birds processed from 9 species.

We had agreed that 4 hours in the cold was plenty, so we packed away at 11:30 and were off site by 12:15.

A quite phenomenal month for the team.  As ever, Jonny’s contribution was huge, with 628 of the records, but my team’s contribution wasn’t too shabby at 454!  This is what we processed:

Added to the list for this year is Linnet, Magpie, Pied Wagtail and Starling.  Missing from this year’s list is Bullfinch, Fieldfare, Jay, Siskin and Treecreeper.  The last is somewhat surprising, because all of my ringing this month has been in woodland. Two of last year’s three were from my sites.  I didn’t have any this October either for the first time ever.  Clearly the obvious difference is the number of Blue Tits processed.  Absolutely huge: in my last two sessions we have processed 105 of the blighters. The Friday session was just David and me, the Sunday session was Ellie, and me, but Ellie had to leave at 10:40 for work, leaving me another 25 or so to process. Lucky me!  

Other significant increases were Chiffchaff (65 vs 45) – our best ever November catch.  All of them caught at Johnny’s sites. Mind, he had 40 of last year’s total (and I had the other 5).  21 of them were at Langford Lakes, not so surprising, but 43 of them were on farmland near Sutton Benger.  Good numbers of Chaffinch this year, with 12 caught near Hilmarton and the rest evenly split around a number of sites in the Braydon Forest and Jonny’s farmland sites.  Best thing about it: our team did not find a single bird that we couldn’t ring due to FPV or mite infestation.

A nice increase in Goldcrest numbers but an astonishing number of Goldfinch caught.  The Sutton Benger sites were having an absolute ball: 73 of them were caught there.  16 at his East Tytherton farm site.

Personally, my favourite catch of the month was the 13 Marsh Tits ringed.  All were ringed within the Braydon Forest, taking us to 37 ringed for the year so far.  The total ringed in Wiltshire last year was 44, with the Braydon Forest contributing 19.  If the other Wiltshire sites are showing similar catch rates, what a huge turnaround that will be for the species in Wiltshire.  I am extremely hopeful that we will pass 40 in the Forest this year.  With four woodland sessions left before the end of the year, I am pretty confident.

The last big increase was in Yellowhammer numbers: 57 vs 3!  Once again, the Sutton Benger sites on a par with the Hilmarton site (27 vs 26) and four on the Imber Ranges.

That said, there are some pretty heavy reductions in other species.  

Long-tailed Tit numbers were well down, both new and retrapped (62 vs 115), but retraps more so (16 vs 47).  Meadow Pipit numbers were down (7 vs 21), but Redwing numbers were very, very low (29 vs 121).  Not too surprising in some respects: my key site for the species at this time of year is Blakehill Farm and, apart from the consistently high winds in November, which prevented me ringing there, the Hawthorn and Blackthorn hedgerow has been layered, in accordance with the requirements of their Countryside Stewardship plan.  Ideally, it needs to be at least six foot high, laden with berries, not three foot high with none.  It is our worst November haul of this species since 2017!

A couple of footnotes: this is our second best November, identical in numbers to 2022, and just 42 lower than our best ever, set in 2020.  2022 was achieved in 23 sessions and 2020 in 24 sessions.  Also, we have overtaken last year’s total already: 12,354 birds processed vs 12,157.  The key difference is in the number of birds ringed: 9,544 vs 8,966.  Retraps were down by 400: 2,161 vs 2,561.  Pullus ringing was slightly up, despite the poor Barn Owl year, at 649 vs 630.

With everybody else unavailable and, despite the fact that she would have to leave by 10:40 to go to work, Ellie offered to join me for as much of the session as she could. I was very grateful as, even though we didn’t set all of the nets we would with a team out, we had a very good catch. These are the nets we set:

The first couple of rounds produced about 20 birds, but the next round was over double that. By the time we had extracted them all it was time for Ellie to go off to get ready for work, so she didn’t get to ring many birds. Her help was hugely appreciated, as she came all the way from Cheltenham to do so. As I have said before, I am extremely lucky with who I have in my team.

I decided to shut and loosely furl the nets after Ellie left: I reckoned I had enough to keep me going for the rest of the morning. In fact, I decided to leave ride 3 open as it had not caught much, just three Goldcrest. I would check it every 20 minutes whilst processing the other birds (to give me a break from being pecked to bits by Blue Tits). That produced another Goldcrest at 11:00, and, a fine finale, as I was taking the nets in, I took ride 3 last and, as ever, it was at the furthest end of the last net!

Am I getting boring about Marsh Tits yet? Number 37 for the Braydon Forest this year came in the second round, which I gave to Ellie to process. I am wondering about not continuing my colour-ringing project next year: I get so few resighting reports and these little pieces of coloured plastic are not cheap. It costs me £1.00 per bird to ring and colour ring each Marsh Tit. With a 6% increase in the price of metal rings this year that money might be better spent on them.

The list from the session was: Blue Tit 32(1); Great Tit 9(2); Coal Tit 3(2); Marsh Tit 1(3); Robin 3; Goldcrest 5; Chaffinch 1. 54 birds ringed from 7 species and 8 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 62 birds processed from 7 species.

One nice interlude, as I was getting down to the last few birds I noticed an elderly couple, a young lad and a Chihuahua approaching up the central glade. I held a couple back just in case they were interested and took a Great Tit out of the bag as they came up alongside. They asked what I was doing and I explained about bird ringing to them. I finished processing the bird and asked the young lad (Ralph) if he would like to be shown how to safely hold and release a bird. Of course he did! He was a natural. I then processed a Robin and let him do the same again. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it looks as though I might get a new trainee: good job I have the appropriate young person’s training licence and a current Advanced DBS certificate.

I started taking down and packing away at 12:30 but, with a few stops for coffee (and to rest an aching back – getting old is no fun) and left site just after 14:00. Tiring but somewhat satisfying. What would have made it totally satisfying would have been a couple of Redwing, Siskin and Redpoll but they are definitely scarce so far this autumn.

Oh good grief: a quite astonishing session at Red Lodge this morning. I hadn’t been able to get out before this this week: Monday to Wednesday my car was in having its bodywork repaired (I won’t ever try driving after taking Tramadol again – a lesson that cost me £780 to learn!), Thursday was too wet and windy. Today was forecast to be dry but breezy. My usual midweek team was otherwise occupied, but David, normally only available at weekends, was available today but, in keeping with the flow of things, is not available for the weekend.

It was windier than I was expecting, so we restricted ourselves to just four nets: around the feeding stations, as they are pretty well sheltered from the wind. These were the nets we set:

As I only got around to setting up the feeding station on Tuesday. Arriving on site at 7:15 the first thing I did was check the feeders: the peanut feeder nearest the ringing station was empty, the seed feeder still two-thirds full. Both feeders at the far end of the ride looked untouched. I expected that would mean that we would have a Titmouse heavy catch: I didn’t expect it to be quite as heavy as it was. Even before we had started to open the nets we caught five Great Tits and a Blue Tit in the closed nets. Ironically, they were all in ride two up by the untouched feeders! That ride was the busiest all morning: I doubt those feeders will be full for long.

We processed those birds and went to check the opened nets, and extracted another 20+ birds: that included another four Marsh Tits to be ringed! Our biggest ever catch of them in Red Lodge! That takes us to 36 in our Braydon Forest woodlands – a total of 44 fledged Marsh Tits were ringed in the whole of Wiltshire in 2024! Have I mentioned that someone described the population of Marsh Tits in the Braydon Forest as “insignificant”, because it puts a big spoke in his theory that supplementary and garden feeding is helping drive their extinction?

As we were processing these birds, we had a chat with Paul, a local birder and photographer that I usually meet at Lower Moor Farm. He was looking for signs of the Goshawk that has been reported in the area. Although I did see one of my first ever in Red Lodge in winter 2013 / 2014, as I was topping up the feeders, and saw what I thought was a big Sparrowhawk, until I noticed that the two birds chasing it were Carrion Crows and they were smaller! They are becoming a feature in the Braydon Forest: I have seen them in three of my sites, and had reports of another in a fourth. Anyway, before he headed off he told us that there looked to be about 20 birds in our nets. If only: we had 70+ birds in the nets. It was damned hard work, but we cracked on and got them all out, shutting the nets as we went. I was thinking we might reopen them once we had finished extracting but, in the event, the wind became so strong that I decided we would leave them closed and take down once we had finished processing the birds we had extracted: just as well, because we were very busy for the next couple of hours processing those birds we had extracted. Bear in mind that is less than 2 minutes per bird, with age, moult, sex, where applicable and all biometrics taken and recorded, no ringing and flinging! Efficient or what?

Paul came back as we were processing this lot, he was quite astonished at how much we had to do. He had been lucky: found the Goshawk nest and a roosting Woodcock. He left us to it, as were a tad busy!

The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1; Blue Tit 66(3); Great Tit 18; Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 4; Long-tailed Tit 8; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 100 birds ringed from 8 species and 3 birds retrapped from 1 species, making 103 birds processed from 8 species.

It is far and away the biggest catch of Blue Tits to ring in the Braydon Forest and our absolute biggest total catch of them, passing the 67 we had in the Firs just 13 days ago. Until today, that was our biggest ever haul of Blue Tits, at 67, but only 45 of those were birds to be ringed. This is our biggest ever ringing haul, and our biggest ever haul of ringed and retrapped Blue Tits.

After we finished processing the birds and taking down the nets and packing away, it was 13:30! A long morning, hard work, but very satisfying in lots of ways.