Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

Obviously this excessive heat has had a huge impact on our activities, not least because we don’t want to cause the birds any more stress that they are dealing with at the moment. Also, as Ringer-in-Charge, the health and welfare of my team is a major responsibility, not that they are so daft that they wouldn’t come prepared.

We did get together on Monday, before this heatwave fully kicked into gear. We thought, set the nets in shade, and our ringing station also, plus a couple of brollies, and we should be okay. The only reason that we were doing this is because I had agreed to do a demonstration for the Swindon Men’s Mental Health Group, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken it on. Obviously, when we booked it over a month ago, none of us had any idea of how the weather would turn out. However, having got everybody organised, I got a text Sunday night saying that, by the time they got there at 11:00, it would be far too hot for their health. That would have been somewhat ironic!

The team was big: we had David, Laura, Miranda, Pete and me. We met in the main car park at 5:00 and set the following nets:

1 = 3 x 18m 4-Shelf Nets; 2 = 2 x 18m 5-Shelf Nets; 3 = 2 x 18m + 1 x 12m 5-Shelf Nets.

What can I say: we set nine nets and in four hours we caught nine birds! This was the catch: Great Tit (1); Marsh Tit (1); Wren 1[1]; Robin 1[2](1); Blackcap [1]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 4 juveniles ringed from 3 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 9 birds processed from 5 species.

Without exception, our worst ever June catch in Somerford Common. We packed up at 11:00 and went home. Of course, I got home to find about 15 Starlings, 6 Jackdaws, 5 Blue Tits, 2 Great Tits, 1 Coal Tit, 2 Robins, 2 Dunnocks, 2 Blackbirds, 3 Woodpigeons, 2 Magpies, 1 Wren, 6 Goldfinch. Greenfinch and 2 Feral Pigeons in my garden devouring all of the seeds, fat balls and peanuts I had put out after dark Sunday night. There was also one very frustrated Grey Squirrel who couldn’t get beyond the baffles! I should have stayed at home!

Given the current hype about not feeding seeds to the birds in the summer: my feeders are being emptied on a daily basis! It seems every species, except the Jackdaws and Magpies, have learnt how to get onto the seed feeders, even the Blackbirds, who started by pretending to be Hummingbirds, but have now learned how to hang on, and the Starlings who cling like crazy. I have had to purchase a caged feeder to give the smaller birds a look in. Mind, I also rotate the feeders on a weekly basis, with three cycles of feeders, so each week starts afresh with clean feeders. I haven’t seen a single bird showing signs of Trichomonosis since I ditched the bird table about seven years ago.

With yesterday living up to its forecast of very high winds and rain, and the forecasts for the Ravensroost Meadows area to be dry and sunny all day, with a gentle breeze from the south-west, I decided to move our session to today and to only set the nets that were sheltered from the predicted wind direction.

Laura, Pete and I arrived on site at 5:00 and set the following nets:

All nets were 5-shelf Ecotone 16mm mesh. Nets 1, 2 and 3 each comprised one 12m net. Net 4 comprised one 6m net. Ride 5 comprised three 18m and one 9m nets. Finally, net 6 comprised one 18m net.

Catches haven’t been of the best in the pond area for over six years, but one lives in hope. We started catching pretty well straight away, and had a steady stream of birds to extract right up until we decided to close them at 11:30.

There was a lot of good catching this morning: a tremendous number of Chiffchaff and Whitethroat for starters. Two of my favourite catches were:

This is our first juvenile Whitethroat of the year. That was followed later in the morning by this:

Our first juvenile Bullfinch of the year. This is our earliest capture of a juvenile Bullfinch since three on the 15th June 2019. We have actually only every ringed six in June: three in 2019, two in June 2024 and this one today.

The list for the session was: Blue Tit 1[2]; Great Tit 1[3]; Long-tailed Tit [2]; Wren 2; Dunnock [2]; Robin [4]; Song Thrush 1; Blackcap 1; Garden Warbler [1]; Whitethroat 1[6](5); Chiffchaff 2[10](2); Willow Warbler 2(1); Bullfinch [1]; Goldfinch 2. Totals: 13 adults ringed from 8 species, 31 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 8 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 52 birds processed from 14 species.

One happy coincidence: at our last session in the wood, last Saturday, Adam, Laura’s son, and youngest and a valuable member of our team, ringed a Willow Warbler, ring number TDV734. Unfortunately, it slipped his grasp before it could be measured and weighed. It happens to everyone at one time or other. This morning Laura extracted an already ringed Willow Warbler: TDV734! She finished the job her son hadn’t quite managed to! But, without the ring in place, we wouldn’t have known that.

We closed the nets at 11:30 and took down, getting away at about 12:30 after a very satisfactory session.

Although it is only two weeks since our last visit to Ravensroost Wood, this session was on the schedule because the previous session had to be postponed on several occasions, and there should have been a four week gap. It has to be scheduled in advance because the Wildlife Trust are currently undergoing some deer control in the wood and surrounding area and stalking and ringing don’t mix!

Anyway, it was nice to get out. With the horrendous winds on Friday I did worry about how much it would be windy this morning, but it had calmed down. Having said that, the breeze we had, although from a southerly direction, was very cold! Fortunately, I always carry extra layers of clothes but Pete came in his T-shirt and had no other upper body wear: I didn’t envy him.

I was joined by David, Laura, Adam, Claire and Pete. We met at 5:30 and we set the same nets as last time. We were hopeful of the same result but, unfortunately, it was not to be. In fact, it was exactly half what we had last time. That was due to our not catching any juvenile Long-tailed or Great Tits, just one, very worn out, adult female Great Tit.

There were multiple highlights in the catch though: our first juveniles of Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch and Wren for the year:

I have to be honest, I am used to seeing Nuthatch juveniles in paler, greyer plumage than this one but its wings and tail were brand new, it had bare underwings and flanks, with no sign of moult. It has to be a juvenile, especially when compared with the two adults we recovered, the female of which was absolutely desecrated by the task of rearing its brood.

I love how perfectly the chequerboard on the outer primaries line up. This is because they all grow at the same time and rate. When adults moult it is done sequentially, and they never line up like that again: hence the chequerboard effect. Equally, at this stage the undertail coverts are all brown with no pale spots. They will start developing those later in the year.

In addition to these three, we also caught another three juvenile Marsh Tits to add to the one we caught in Ravensroost two weeks ago. It is looking like another good year for the species in the Braydon Forest. To put it in perspective, on average we ring 6.5 Marsh Tits in the first six months of the year. That includes last year’s 16 in the first six months. With 15 so far, it is entirely probable that we will surpass that this month. Also, the annual average is 19.9 so we are almost certain to beat that very soon.

It was a funny session: long gaps between any birds being caught, then they would come in little clumps, so it was very much a social occasion. The catch, though, was good quality: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1[1](1); Nuthatch 1[1](1); Great Tit (1); Marsh Tit [3]; Wren 1[1](1); Robin 1[5]; Song Thrush 1(1); Blackbird 1(2); Blackcap 4[2]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 1[3](1); Willow Warbler 1[1]. Totals: 12 adults ringed from 9 species, 18 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 8 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 38 birds processed from 12 species.

As I said earlier, the key difference between this session and the last were the lack of Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits. They comprised a total of 29 of the catch on the 27^th May, this time just the one very worn out adult Great Tit.

We packed up just after 11:30. Many hands make light work, and the broth wasn’t spoiled, so we were all off site by just after 12:00. Not as busy a session as we had hoped, but a decent variety, and a nice collection of juvenile birds.

With the weather forecast suggesting it was going to rain all day, the Met Office giving a 70% chance of rain, I thought I would have a look at their satellite tracking system. This said that it would rain until 7:00 and would then clear up, so I told the team to meet at the Firs at 7:00, so we missed the rain. Getting up at 6:00 and finding that there had been no rain at all was somewhat galling!

Anyway, Miranda, Laura, Pete and I met up at 7:00 and set our nets down the central glade: 9 x 18m and 2 x 12m nets. Working in two teams, we had them open by 7:45 and started catching straight away.

The catch started quite well, building up to a couple of rounds with ten and nine birds respectively. A high proportion of those birds were juvenile Blue Tit, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Robin. Much as that was lovely, the highlight had to be three Nuthatch: two unringed females and one retrapped male. We actually caught five Nuthatch during the session. It is not something that happens very often.

Miranda had to leave at 10:45, as she was going over the road to Echo Lodge Meadows to do a bumble bee survey with her Malmesbury & District Natural History Society. It had been planned for Saturday but the weather had been so dire that it had to be cancelled as, indeed, had our planned ringing session for the bio-blitz at Lower Moor Farm.

Soon after she left the Swindon Well-being Team arrived, hence the title for this piece. The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust run a whole series of groups for helping adults and children who have life challenges get in touch with nature. That often involves bringing them along to my ringing sessions, so they can get closer to the bird life. I do know that they thoroughly enjoyed today’s session, Astonishingly, as soon as they arrived we had our two best rounds of the day: 18 and 16 birds in each catch respectively. Even better, most of them were juveniles. However, there had been a lot of talk about Great Spotted woodpeckers, how they loved them but never got to see them close up. Anyway, as we were processing the birds from the last catch, two birds hit the nearest nets: two of the aforesaid Great Spotted Woodpeckers: they were beside themselves in delight. That one was an adult male, and the other a recently fledged juvenile, added to their enjoyment.

The list for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker [1](1); Nuthatch 4(1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1[15](1); Great Tit [2]; Long-tailed Tit [3[(1); Wren 1(2); Dunnock [1]; Robin 2[8](1); Song Thrush [1](1); Blackbird [1](1); Blackcap 2[5](3); Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 3[3]; Willow Warbler [2]; Goldcrest [1]. Totals: 14 adults ringed from 7 species, 44 juveniles ringed from 13 species and 12 birds retrapped from 9 species, making 70 birds processed from 16 species.

That is a truly excellent catch for this site in the summer months: obviously boosted by the recently fledged juveniles. Perhaps more impressive is the 16 species. That is a lot for a small woodland like the Firs. All of the juveniles were highlights but the stand out for me was this bird:

In all of the time I have been ringing in the Firs, I started in August 2012, we have only ringed 12 Garden Warblers at this site. The first in 2019, then none until 2024, when the wood was thinned and opened up more. Since then we have had three in 2024, two in 2025 and, so far, four in 2026. There has been an upsurge of them in Ravensroost this year as well and looks like it could be a record year for them in the Forest.

We decided to do a last round and close the nets as we went, which we did, having extracted another 16 birds. Once we had processed them we took down and cleared away: leaving the well-being team to their campfire lunch!

One thing that they found in the little recreational and seating area were the remains of a Woodpigeon and a Great Spotted Woodpecker that had clearly been predated by a Sparrowhawk, probably a female, possibly a Goshawk.

So, after a thoroughly enjoyable session, we managed to get away by about 13:30. Rather made up for the lack of action over the last week.

One disappointment for me was this:

Only disappointed because I wanted us to catch an adult Robin looking knackered after rearing a brood of chicks, so I could come out with another of my terrible puns, and put a photograph of it up and title it “Another Ragged Robin”! The plant Ragged Robin is very much a declining species in the UK, so finding several of them in the Firs was, itself, something of a treat.

After an extremely frustrating week of rain, wind, wind and rain, and a fairly iffy forecast until Friday of this week, I had become a bit desperate. Not that I didn’t make use of the time to carry out some mist net mending but, apart from aggravating my bad back, it is mind-numbingly boring. I have enjoyed the spectacle in the garden though. Juvenile Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Blackbird, Dunnock, Starling, Blue Tit and Great Spotted Woodpecker have been busy in the garden, along with their parents.

The Starlings have been the busiest. As well as hitting the mealworms as soon as they are out, they, along with the Jackdaws and Magpies, have worked out how to hang onto the fat ball and peanut feeders. Even worse, they have learnt how to hang on to the seed feeders and take a bellyful of that. Actually, so have the Blackbirds, Robins and Magpies, alongside the small species they are meant for. This does mean that my feeders are being emptied every three days, and I use a three set rotation. I have not seen any sign of disease in any of the birds in my garden since a sick Fieldfare six winters ago – and that had nothing to do with bird feeding.

Anyway, it was too windy to try and set any nets today, but we were rather inundated with Starlings and a family of Blue Tits: two adults and five youngsters. A couple of the youngsters were still demanding to be fed, but three were happily hitting the peanuts and the seed feeders. I thought that I would see what I could catch with my Potter Traps:

They have definitely seen better days but two were in working order, so I baited them and put them out around the feeding station area. The other two I took into the garage and set about repairing them. As I repaired each and put them out into the garden they almost immediately caught a Starling.

I started at 13:00 and kept them open until 17:00. i.e. after lunch and before tea. In that time I caught 13 Starlings, all bar two were juveniles. The other two were adult females. Both had very obvious brood patches, with no signs of feathering over. It looks like second broods are a possibility this year.

Although I have been seeing them for a few weeks now, not one of these juveniles had started their post-fledging moult.

Anyway, it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon: mending and ringing.

Quite the most phenomenal month.  Obviously our figures have been boosted by Jonny’s monitoring of titmouse boxes in the Trowbridge area and beyond, but particularly Green Land and Biss Woods.  In addition, as part of his role at the WSBRC, monitoring Tree Sparrow and Lapwing breeding, has also added significantly to that part of the catch.  However, that doesn’t explain that our number of non-pulli ringed was over 100 more than last May, from 47 species, compared to 39 species last May.  

The pullus ringing has been phenomenal.  As well as the Blue and Great Tits have done, Jonny has managed to ring a spectacular 21 Lapwing chicks, compared with 5 last May.  The 10 retraps are this year’s birds picked up as a part of the ongoing species monitoring. In addition to that, he got to ring his first ever Stone-curlew chick.  This is good news for two reasons: a great addition to his list but, also, this was not on Salisbury Plain but a long way east of the Plain. I am keeping the location confidential because it is so special.  I am aware that the RSPB reserve on Winterbourne Downs were hoping for them to breed there this year: at least, that was their excuse for refusing me access to ring there, so perhaps they are beginning to spread out from the Plain.

However, I strongly suspect Jonny’s bird of the month was this:

This species is specially protected and needs a schedule 1 licence to monitor and ring the birds, which Jonny has for Lapwing, Stone-Curlew, Little Ringed Plover and Barn Owl. This is at Langford Lakes.  Last year they tried to breed but the nest got flooded out.  This year the site was managed, the nest protected from potential predators and this was the result: two Little Ringed Plover chicks ringed.  Let’s hope they survive! The last time that any chicks of this species were ringed by someone in the group, as it was then configured, was in 2003 in the gravel pits near Ashton Keynes.  Fabulous bird, and increasingly uncommon.

After last year’s disaster with Barn Owls, this year the recovery is phenomenal: actually it is better than that. We don’t usually ring many pulli in May. In fact, prior to this May we had ringed actually only ringed 5 in May: in 2024.  This month we ringed 62 of them: 43 in the Braydon Forest area and 19 in the Chippenham / Lyneham area.  What is rather remarkable is that the 43 we have ringed in the Braydon Forest area have come from just 8 boxes. Of the boxes we have checked, the four at Upper Waterhay have all drawn a blank, except for one that had a brood of Jackdaws, whereas within the Forest only two had no sign of activity, one because somehow its front door had been ripped off, two were clearly being used as roosting sites, and one had a brood of Jackdaws in it.  We didn’t actually ring all of the chicks we found first time round, as some were too small.  However, we ringed three broods of 7, two of which had an eighth chick which was too small to ring, two broods of 6, one of which had a chick too small to ring, then one brood of four and two broods of three.  We have never had a brood of 8 before so to have three broods with that many chicks is remarkable for us.  To put this into more perspective: the most we have ever ringed in a single year before was 33, in 2024,  With them breeding so early this year I would not be surprised to find that we get second broods as well.

This is the list for the month:

So, increases across the board: an excellent number of species processed . I cannot remember a month when we have processed 50 species.

Added to the list this year are: Bullfinch, Canada Goose gosling, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit, Grey Wagtail, Linnet, Little Ringed Plover, Magpie, Nuthatch, Sparrowhawk and Tawny Owl pulli. The only species missing from the list this year was Collared Dove.

One final anecdote: the Carrion Crow was ringed by Jonny. On his way along the A338, near East Grafton, he noticed a Carrion Crow sat at the side of the road begging for food.  He stopped to see if it was okay, and it begged at him for food. Instead he gave it a ring and then carried it across the road to where the parents were foraging and left it in a safe place still calling to be fed!  It is only the sixth wild caught Carrion Crow the group has ever ringed or, to put it another way, it is the fifth wild caught Carrion Crow Jonny has ever ringed within the group, and I did the other, back in 2014 (I don’t count the two I did in Oak & Furrows rehab centre).

You can see all of the numbers for yourselves. 

I am definitely interested to see how June shapes up.

Our last session of what has been a quite extraordinary month for our entire Group, more of which in the results round up on Monday. Don’t miss it.

Today we were at Ravensroost Meadows. I was joined by David, Laura, Adam and Pete. We met at 5:30 and set our usual nets for the site.

Ride 1 comprised 2 x 18m 5-shelf nets; ride 2 comprised 2 x 18m 4-shelf nets; rides 3, 4 and 5 each comprised 1 x 18m 5-shelf net; ride 6 comprised 3 x 18m + 1 x 9m 5-shelf nets; ride 7 comprised 1 x 6m 5-shelf net and ride 7 comprised 1 x 18m 5-shelf net. We set the ringing station in the shade blocking the gateway into the site.

The nets were open by about 6:30 and we started catching straight away. Although the sun was out all morning the only rides to be even partially affected were 1 and 2.

Unlike Wednesday’s haul, it wasn’t a huge catch. There were a few highlights though. To start with, we caught our first Lesser Whitethroat of the year:

There is definitely a lot of early fledging going on. Whilst setting up ride 1, a Long-tailed Tit juvenile flew into the net whilst it was still being removed from the bag. David extracted it safely. The rest of its family group were in the hedgerow but, unfortunately for our figures, they all managed to avoid the net in question, so it was the only one that we caught.

Unfortunately, I became somewhat unwell at just after 8:30. As Laura has the appropriate permit I left her in charge and snuck home. She ran the team effectively and efficiently and ended the session at about 11:00. Then she kindly delivered all of the equipment back to my house at about 11:30.

The list for today was: Blue Tit [1]; Long-tailed Tit [1]; Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1; Robin 2[2]; Blackbird 1; Blackcap 1[2]; Whitethroat 3; Lesser Whitethroat 1; Chiffchaff 2; Willow Warbler 1(1). Totals: 13 adults ringed from 9 species, 6 juveniles ringed from 4 species and 2 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 21 birds processed from 11 species.

This year is turning into something quite astonishing. I have summarised the year to date at the end of this piece. It is not something that I would ever have predicted.

We went out to check on four more boxes this morning. These were two boxes we had checked back on the 5th May where the young were too small to ring them and another checked on the 5th, when we ringed three chicks, but there were three more that were too small to ring. We also checked a fourth box which we hadn’t checked before.

It was much cooler today thankfully! I was joined by Laura, Adam and Daniel with a nice leisurely start. The first box, at Drill Farm, had two small chicks and four unhatched eggs back on the 5th, today they had four chicks ready to ring.

We then went to Somerford Farm, met up with David, the owner, and checked the box on his property that we didn’t get too last time. This box is our longest trek so we take all of the kit with us. Upon opening it, we found a Jackdaw nest with five young in it. Then I realised I had only brought Barn Owl rings, so Adam did a run back to the car to get sine E-rings. Unfortunately, I hadn’t told him to bring the right sized pliers!! So Laura did the next trip to get the correct pliers. Eventually we got on with processing! We could only do four of the five: the fifth managed to work its way around a couple of corners to the mouth of the box, which is opposite to where the box hatch is.

From there we went to the box that had 6 small young in last time: this time it had seven healthy looking youngsters! We ringed all of them, and then spent a fruitless half-an-hour looking for a Tawny Owl box along the bridle path. We did find pellets and matted dark feathers, we found white guano splash: lots of signs of activity but no signs of a box.

Next port of call was the box in which we ringed three chicks on the 5th May. The already ringed chicks were beautifully well developed, and their three nest mates were a fair way behind in plumage development, but looking healthy with full bellies.

Adjacent to the Barn Owl box was a Jackdaw nest. I didn’t have my long ladder so it wasn’t reachable. However, we could tell it was a Jackdaw nest as there was a dead chick underneath it.

We then went and checked on a rather dilapidated barn that doesn’t have a box but does have a record of Barn Owls roosting there. Sadly no sign today but a pair of Stock Dove, David is going to put up some more Owl and Kestrel boxes around his farm. He has three wildflower meadows – and they look fabulous. He is heavily involved in a number of local farming conservation groups. We are lucky in the Braydon Forest area: the hedgerows are beautifully maintained. There is very little intensive farming: mainly beef and sheep, with a little dairy and lots of varied wildlife.

This really is the most astonishing year for our team ringing Barn Owls. I am the Schedule 1 permit holder for the species in our group. Jonny Cooper is my agent on that licence. I cover the Braydon Forest and the Wiltshire side of the Cotswold Water Park, including Waterhay. Jonny covers the area around Chippenham expanding eastward to Melksham. Over the years our activity has built up, as can be seen from the following table:

As you can see, we have already ringed nearly twice as many pulli as in any previous year. Whilst that is remarkable in itself, given this is the beginning of the season, what is absolutely remarkable is that, apart from five ringed in May in 2024, we have never ringed Barn Owl pulli in any other year, and yet have ringed 62 in this month! 43 of those are in the Braydon Forest area, and 19 are in Jonny’s sites. Of course, he might add some more before the end of play on Sunday. It will be very interesting where we end up by the ends of the season. The key is the size of the broods. We have ringed three broods of seven, two bro0ds of six, one of four and two of three. Four and three is our usual brood size. An unbelievable start to the season!

We have now, thanks to the members of the Malmesbury & District Natural History Society, driven by my trainee, Miranda, a whole bunch of Barn, Tawny & Little Owl boxes, plus a number of Kestrel boxes, established in and around Malmesbury. Miranda is now an agent on my schedule 1 licence and will be monitoring those boxes for the future. Things can only get better!

With the weather being as hot as it is, and quite strong breeze forecast, I decided to go back to Ravensroost Wood. Our last visit there was on the 25th April and we processed 28 birds from 11 species. What a difference a month can make!

In fact, today’s is our largest ever catch in Ravensroost Wood outside of the months with the feeding stations set up: i.e. April to October inclusive. I was joined for the morning by Miranda, Laura, Adam, Sarah and our newest recruit, 12-year old Dorothy. Miranda had to leave at 9:00 for a prior commitment but, with us meeting on site at 5:30, she helped us get set up and to process a decent number of birds before leaving.

We set nets along two rides in the wood: R38 and R35. R38 had two net sets: one comprising x 2 18m nets and the second comprising 2 x 18m + 1 x 9m nets. R35 had three sets, each comprising 2 x 18m nets. This was actually 2 x 18m nets fewer than we had in our last session. The breeze was constant throughout the morning, but coming from the east-north-east it had a lot of woodland to get through and barely impacted on the nets at all. With two teams setting up it didn’t take long to get going

We started catching before the nets were all open, with Blackcaps, Garden Warbler, Robins and Willow Warbler all hitting the nets whilst we were finishing setting them up. It was a bit on and off all morning, with three biggish rounds and six single figure rounds, but the quality was very good.

There were several highlights:

Our first newly fledged Blackcap of 2026. This was soon followed by:

Our first juvenile Great Tit of the year. This was followed in the next round by another 11 juvenile Great Tits and a tired looking adult! Whilst Laura and Adam were extracting those in ride 35, Sarah and I were extracting 10 juvenile Long-tailed Tits in ride 38. We have had a couple of juveniles of the species so far this year, but this was the first family flock. That was followed by juvenile Robins, another two juvenile Song Thrush and, then, my personal highlight of the session:

Our first juvenile Marsh Tit of the year! It is only the third time in 14 years of study that we have ringed a juvenile Marsh Tit in May. Each time (2017, 2024, 2026) it is just one. We don’t usually catch good numbers of juveniles until August.

We also had our first recently fledged Blue Tit of the year:

The list from the day was: Nuthatch 2; Blue Tit 2[1](2); Great Tit [12](1); Marsh Tit [1](1); Long-tailed Tit 2[9]; Wren 2(2); Robin 1[2](6); Song Thrush [2](1); Blackbird 1; Blackcap 8[1](2); Garden Warbler 7(1); Chiffchaff 1(1); Willow Warbler 1(2); Bullfinch 2. Totals: 29 adults ringed from 11 species, 28 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 19 birds retrapped from 10 species, making 76 birds processed from 14 species.

We had all had enough sun by 11:00, although we did manage to make maximum use of available shade, and all nets were in shade all through the session, one of the benefits of the ride structure in Ravensroost Wood. closed the nets at about 11:20, processed the last few birds, and took down. It was a special session: the company was lovely, the birds were remarkably obliging and the haul was varied and interesting. We left site before midday. I ran a little bit later as my car decided not to start. As much as I love my Mazda CX-30, it does have a very annoying habit: even if the car is switched off, if you open the hatch-back it assumes that you want the car to be ready to go, and it fires up the electrics and, very helpfully, drains the battery! I now carry a portable battery boost, which is brilliant, so it only took a couple of minutes to fire it up, but I would hate to find that the boost had run out of charge at the same time as the car had. Last time I had car trouble, even though I had Green Flag cover, they wanted £450 to “rescue” me from an open field that was harder than the tarmac on the roads, that had softened due to the heat! Apparently they needed to bring special equipment, i.e. a Landrover with a winch, to pull me out so it could be loaded onto their flatbed! I got a local lad out who charged me £150 and drove his flatbed truck out over the field to pick the car up!

Anyway, more Barn Owl checking tomorrow! Hoping there are at least another 18 to ring!

What a calamitous way to start a session! Firstly, I missed two emails from Claire yesterday evening. She was planning to come along, but hadn’t been there before and asked for a pin to where we would be. When I didn’t reply, because somehow I didn’t see it, she assumed that the session wasn’t going ahead. So that left myself and Pete to carry out the session.

We set fewer nets than usual: the T-net set up: one each of 9m, 12m and 18m and then, along the back tree line, two x 18m and 1 x 9m. However, we had a nightmare with the T-net set up: it took us an hour to sort it all out! Cue some pretty ripe language from yours truly. The other reason we set fewer nets, with the temperature scheduled to hit 29^oC, I wanted them to be out of the sun to minimise any prospect of heat stress for the birds. For the same reason, we made sure that the ringing station was well out of the sun for the entire session.

Then we started catching birds. Well, catching is a bit of an exaggeration: we ended up with just 14 birds from nine species! However, for Pete, he got to ring his first ever House Sparrow and, later in the morning, his first Magpie:

So two new for him was joyous, but the reason for the title of this blog piece is that, 20 minutes later, we caught a second! Prior to today we had caught and ringed a total of 11 Magpies since I took on the ringing in the Braydon Forest. We have caught two in a session on two other occasions: the first was in October 2016, on the opposite side of the site, the second was in May 2020, at Blakehill Farm West. In fact, of the 13 we have now caught, nine of them have been caught at Blakehill Farm.

The list for the morning was: Magpie 2; Great Tit (1); Wren 1; Dunnock (1); Robin 1[2](1); Blackbird [2]; Blackcap 1; Goldfinch 1; House Sparrow 1. Totals: 7 adults ringed from 6 species, 4 juveniles ringed from 2 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 14 birds processed from 9 species. Not a bad variety from such a small catch.

It was a very pleasant morning to be out. Arriving on site the first bird I saw was a male Stonechat. It is only in the last couple of years since we, and Robin Griffiths and his monitoring team, have found evidence of them breeding at Blakehill Farm.

That was followed by sight of a dozen and more Skylark on the edge of the plateau. During the morning we had Buzzards, Red Kites and a Sparrowhawk taking advantage of the thermals to soar over the plateau area. Also, and the most hopeful sign, a calling Curlew! Hopefully, one day, we will find some well grown chicks!

We had a visit from a lovely elderly couple who were very interested in what we were doing, Fortunately, it coincided with our catching three birds, so we actually had something to show them, explain about the ringing scheme, why we do it and how it benefits our birdlife.

Pete and I shut the nets and took down at 11:30 and were off site soon after midday. It was a small but curiously satisfying session.