Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

I was joined by Max for this morning’s session. Max is a professional ecologist who has just moved to Wiltshire. He is keen to set up a raptor box monitoring group in his local area, so I was happy to give him a taster of what it is like in our area.

We started out at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust property at Clattinger Farm. Ellie, the northern estates manager, when I contacted her to confirm they were happy for me to do the checking, had suggested that I also have a check on the Swallow activity around the farm buildings.

We checked the Owl box and there was a freshly built Stock Dove nest in situ. No sign of adult or eggs, so I will check it again in a month.

Most of the Swallows were busy nest building in the stables. However, one of the nests contained a recently hatched chick and three warm eggs. Again I will check on that in a couple of weeks.

We went from there to Upper Waterhay to check on our four boxes there. There was worse than a complete blank there last year, with the entire brood of Barn Owls predated between first visit and the return to ring them. The other occupied box last year had three well grown Jackdaw chicks, but they were all dead: probably within two weeks of fledging. No idea what killed them. They looked well-developed, just dead.

This year that box also had nestling Jackdaws in it. We ringed the two that were there. Quite young still, just showing their first body feathers and wing feathers short and in pin. These were very well fed, nice full bellies. Hopefully, when we follow up they will have fledged!

One other box was completely empty, but the last box we checked, although we didn’t find an owl in the box, it had a few pellets and, more interestingly, a couple of dead field mice stored in the box. Hopefully this is the start of a nesting attempt. We will check again in a few weeks, fingers crossed.

From there we went over to the Trust’s Blakehill Farm site, where we have two boxes. It was looking like a very disappointing session, especially when you look at our first session of the year. Our first box was another disaster: someone, for some reason, had removed the access hatch door and thrown it on the floor. The box was completely empty.

So one box to go: the one nearest the farm yard. I was hoping we might have something there: it has been 100% successful since I took over monitoring these boxes in 2017. As we approached the box an adult flew off that was a good sign! When I opened the box, oh my goodness: eight chicks at various stages. The smallest was too small to ring but, by the looks of his bulbous stomach, I expect when we visit again in a month it will be ready to go.

The amazing thing is that I have never had a brood of eight before. In fact, prior to this year I had never ringed more than five Barn Owl chicks in a brood. So far this year we have ringed two broods of seven and, now, one brood of eight. We also have three broods to revisit when they have grown a bit. They were all in the six bird bracket.

Max wanted to take some photos, as references for any future monitoring he gets to do. I had the opportunity to show him many of the features we look out for when processing pulli. Obviously, the standard is to weigh the bird. We also make reference to the growth of their wings. These all fell within the category of feathers short, i.e. coming out of pin but less than one-third of their final length. We measure the length of the exposed feather from the top of the pin on primary feather number 4.

One of the first things we noticed was how the flight feathers grow:

If you look at the feather I am holding, there are two feathers growing out of a single pin. This is how the Barn Owl has its silent flight for hunting over fields. The under feather helps deaden the sound coming from the wings when hunting over the fields.

The next thing I could show him was how you can sex Barn Owls based on their wing plumage:

As you can see, even on this partially grown wing, the underwing black spots identify this as a female owlet. If it were a male, it would look like this:

This was our last stop and very much made up for the previous disappointments. On Monday we are off to check out another seven boxes. We know that one of them definitely has a decent sized brood, as the landowner has been monitoring it via a nest cam. It really looks as if we are going to have our best year so far for Barn Owls. Excitingly, they are nesting so early that second broods are very much a possibility this year!

All photos are courtesy of Max.

The weather forecast was a bit iffy for this morning’s session but on waking this morning it looked clear, and the forecast had changed to rain starting at 2:00pm. My morning started brilliantly: at 5:15 I could hear a Cuckoo calling whilst I was inside the house getting prepared for the morning session. As I left the house to head for site at 5:30 there it was, sitting at the top of the Aspen tree we have in the garden. Purton seems to have a reasonable population each year. I have seen them quite often around the village, but this was the first time I have seen one in my garden. In the event, we heard Cuckoo calling all morning.

I had a biggish team out, we met at 6:00 and set our usual summer period nets but added another ride of 3 x 18m 4-shelf nets to the end of the rides on the main path, in an effort to increase the catch. It didn’t work as well as I would have liked but we had a good session. I was joined by David, Laura, Adam and Pete. Later in the morning, Laura’s friend Gemma joined us and helped us pack away at the end, along with David’s dad, Trevor.

Anyway, it was slow but there was a lot of satisfaction in what we did catch. The main highlight of the morning was this:

This is our first juvenile Long-tailed Tit of the year. The only surprising thing about this bird was that it was on its own, with no sign of a family group. Quite unusual.

It wasn’t a huge catch but we added another two Song Thrush to this month’s total, taking it to 10 so far: five newly fledged and five second calendar year birds, of those: two were males and three females.

One of the slight oddities about the morning were that we did catch a dozen Blue Tits. That is pretty unusual for our woodland sites at this time of year, one or two is usual, until the youngsters fledge. Nine of the dozen were females, all still showing functioning brood patches, as one would expect; all looking terribly worn out and ragged, heads in various stages of baldness, but two of them, and one of the two retrapped Marsh Tits, were undergoing primary feather moulting. That was a surprise to me, as I expect them to undergo primary moult post-breeding: it is an energetic process and, pre-fledging, they need all of their energy for rearing their young.

The list for the morning session was: Nuthatch (1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 7(5); Great Tit 1; Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit (2); Long-tailed Tit [1}; Wren 1(1); Robin 2; Song Thrush 2; Blackbird 3(1); Blackcap 5. Totals: 22 adults ringed from 8 species, 1 juvenile and 11 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 34 birds processed from 12 species.

We closed the nets and took down at 11:30, processing the last three birds, whilst others in the team started taking down. With the team and David’s dad working on it, it was all done very quickly and we were off site by midday.

In my write up of our session at Lower Moor Farm on Tuesday, 12^th May, I noted that we had a retrapped Cetti’s Warbler, Cettia cetti. What I didn’t realise, until I received a query whilst entering the data into the online record system, as the ring number was not assigned to the West Wilts Ringing Group, that it was what we call a “control”. When I got the notification from the BTO later that day, the benefits of an online system, I was surprised by how far it had travelled.

As a much younger individual, in the early 1980’s I used to travel from Reading to spend the odd weekend at Portland Bill birding. We would go to Radipole Lake in Weymouth as the key place to see and hear Cetti’s Warbler. I saw my first in 1985. I knew they were spreading, as a couple of years later I saw one at the gravel pits to the west of Reading (Pingewood not Theale). However, they are still not renowned for moving around a lot.

Lower Moor Farm is the only place that my team catch Cetti’s. I caught my first in May 2015, having started ringing there in 2013. When I checked with the ringer who had covered the site for a decade or more, up until he gave the site up in 2011, he confirmed that he had never caught one there before. So it was a first for the site. Since then we have caught them in every year, some better than others. We can identify 10 territories between the car park and into our ringing site, just four of them within our area.

Anyway, we retrapped this bird on the 12^th May and the report showed that it was ringed at the bird ringing factory called Icklesham, in the Rye Bay area of East Sussex on the 27th October 2024. It has travelled 201km WNW from where it was ringed in 562 days. I am not pretending that this is any sort of record for the species, the longest movement was 388km from Leighton Moss in Lancashire to my old stomping ground, Farlington Marshes, adjacent to my home city of Portsmouth. However, checking our records, prior to this recapture, the furthest distance any of ours travelled was 79km, most were 3 or 4km from the Cotswold Water Park. Bear in mind that prior to this latest we had only five previous controls.

Anyway, it tickled my fancy and I thought I would write it up!

Normally we would do our midweek session on a Wednesday, but the weather forecast for Wednesday, to and including Friday, is for it to be wet and windy and unsuitable for ringing, so we brought it forward a day. I was joined by Miranda for the session. We met at 6:30 and set 3 net rides: two of 3 x 18m nets and one of 2 x 18m + 1 x 9 m nets. The sun was out but the temperature was 0^oC. As the sun started to warm the site, the westerly breeze got up, and it was incredibly cold until you got out of the breeze. The nets were nicely sheltered, so it was warmer doing rounds than processing the birds. It took until gone 10:00 before the ambient temperature reached what could be called warm!

This was the ringing highlight of our day: our first juvenile Robins of the year. Not just one but three. In the 13 years I have been ringing at Lower Moor Farm, we have only ever ringed a single juvenile earlier, by one day, in 2024. Most of them don’t appear until the last two weeks of the month.

When you add in three juvenile Song Thrush as well in the session, things are looking promising. Out on Mallard Lake we had sightings of the Mute Swan pair with their four cygnets, a female Mallard with a dozen ducklings in tow and, a first for Lower Moor Farm, a pair of Greylag Geese with their goslings!

The list for today was: Treecreeper (1); Wren 1; Dunnock (2); Robin 2[3](1); Song Thrush 1[3]; Blackbird (1); Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap 3(3); Garden Warbler 3(1); Chiffchaff 1(1); Goldcrest (2); Bullfinch 1. Totals: 12 adults ringed from 7 species, 6 juveniles ringed from 2 species and 13 birds retrapped from 9 species, making 31 birds processed from 12 species.

There was a lot going on all over the site: a fabulous morning for Dragonflies! Adjacent to the ringing station is a large oak tree, which was in the sun all morning and it was absolutely alive with Four-spotted Chaser and Downy Emerald Dragonflies.

I had to extract a Downy Emerald that had become entangled in the net. Delighted to say that it came out unscathed:

Whilst we were in between net rounds this rather fabulous Azure Damselfly came and posed on our net bag hanger:

On my last net round around the lower nets I carried out another rescue: this was a more difficult one, but again it was successful:

Talking of immature Four-spotted Chaser, poor quality photograph taken on my phone, but there is a newly emerged immature and, in the red oval, you can see the exuvia.

We had a nice chat with Ellie, the Northern Reserves Estates Manager, and her trainee, Evan, and the volunteer who was working with her (sorry chap, can’t remember your name! Getting old!). Evan came along when taking a break from mowing duties and ringed a couple of birds with us. Both he and Ellie will be joining us to learn some more about ringing in the months to come.

All in all, despite it not being the biggest haul, and the bitterly cold wind for much of the morning, it was a really enjoyable session. We packed up at 11:30, which took rather a long time, because we had to remove a lot of Willow catkins from the nets and, as fast as we were removing them, despite the nets being closed, they were filling up again! I got away from site at about 12:45.

Since the landowner, local waste management firm, Hills, insisted that the Trust, who manage the site on their behalf, remove all of the Ash, to prevent potential accidents for visitors from trees affected by die-back, the bird life there has improved immensely. A key impact has been a much more open woodland and canopy. The fact that we had our largest catches there this winter, and over 23 species recorded in the last year, is testament to the improvement. More on that later.

I was joined this morning by David, Laura, Adam and Pete. We met at 6:00 and set the usual nets, adding a third net to the two adjacent to the ringing station. In total we had 228m of net set. They were open before 7:00 and we started catching straight away. It was an excellent first round: whilst the team were finishing off setting the nets down the central glade, I started opening the nets. There were already birds in. First bird I took out was a Garden Warbler, and then I took out a Blackcap and another two Garden Warblers. This was significant: prior to this session we had never caught more than two in the Firs in a full session, on 29th May 2024. On five other occasions we have caught singles, so three in one session was brilliant. When that finally turned into five, that was outstanding. Before today we had caught seven in the Firs in the period 2019 to 2025, having caught none between 2013 and 2018 inclusive. To nearly double the total to date in one session was a real surprise. Two of those five were females, with well developed brood patches. So hopefully we can look forward to some juveniles in a few weeks time.

The main part of the catch was Blackcap. They were mainly males, but we did have four females, all of which had fully developed brood patches. No doubt feeding their first broods.

The two Blackbirds ringed were newly fledged youngsters. They hadn’t started their post fledging moult yet. Unfortunately, they were both bothered by ticks attached to the side of the gape, in too difficult a position to attempt removal (I am authorised by the BTO to carry out tick removal).

As ever, we did catch a couple of Blue Tits. If anybody wonders jus how hard adult Blue Tits work to rear their broods, have a look at this:

The two we caught were both clearly knackered, this one was the worse of the two.

The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1(1); Blue Tit (2); Great Tit 1(1); Marsh Tit (1); Wren (2); Dunnock 1; Robin (1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird [2](1); Blackcap 13(2); Garden Warbler 5; Willow Warbler (2); Chaffinch 1. Totals: 23 adults ringed from 7 species, 2 juveniles ringed from 1 species and 13 birds retrapped from 9 species, making 38 birds processed from 13 species.

One interesting thing happened this morning: our ringing tables, equipment, our chairs and we people, were continually having little black bits dropping on to us from the trees above. It took a few minutes to realise: it is clearly a very good breeding season for moths, butterflies and other insects that lay their eggs in the treetops, because it was an absolute bombardment of caterpillar poo!

We kept brushing it off, turn around and there it was again.

Alongside our decent catch for this time of year, we were treated to Green Woodpeckers having a yaffle off from each side of the wood, we were visited by a Great Spotted Woodpecker in the trees above our ringing station. I had a very pleasant 10 minutes watching it hopping up and around the trees close by. The obligatory Raven cronked its way around the treetops, with small flocks of Jackdaw and the odd Carrion Crow flying over. However, perhaps the best sighting of the morning was seven Buzzards, and several Red Kites, taking advantage of the thermals to circle around above the wood and surrounding fields. Like yesterday, when we saw a dozen or more Red Kite whilst out checking Barn Owl boxes in this area, farmer Malcolm and his team were out again today, collecting up the cut grass for silage, which was no doubt what was interesting the raptors.

With the catch dying off after 11:00, we shut the nets and took down starting at 11:30. With the number out, and David’s dad Trevor joining and helping, it was all done and we were off site by 12:15, after a very satisfactory session.

Having seen how early Barn Owls have nested on Salisbury Plain and in the Lower Wylye Valley, I thought I should have a look at our local boxes. We are usually a few weeks behind them so I was expecting to find a few on eggs and perhaps a few newly hatched chicks. I was joined for the morning by Laura and Daniel. Daniel was a star, he did all of the ladder carrying, which meant this geriatric didn’t have to. My back thanks him!

We met at 9:00 and first stop was Lower Pavenhill Farm, just a mile down the road from my place. During the summer the fields around the box are full of horses. They have a tendency to nibble the car, and I would prefer them not to, so we had to carry the kit down the field, with our entourage in tow. Last year we found adults roosting, but no sign of breeding. This year we opened the box to find seven chicks! Six were large enough to be ringed, the other we will, hopefully, be able to ring that one in a couple of weeks. It was well fed. A great start to the session!

Our next stop was a new box that the farmer had erected overwinter in the field behind Purley Farm off the B4696. This did not have any chicks, but there were plenty of pellets, including some that looked fresh, so it is looking hopeful for the future.

We then moved north to Plain Farm. Last year we found two small chicks there at the start of the year and, when we went to ring them there was only one. This year we caught mum on the box. She was ringed as an adult in the next box on our visit list, Drill farm, in June 2023.

On looking in the box we found another seven chicks, all with their primary and secondary wing feathers emerging out of pin, the longest with a P4 of 100m, the shortest with just 10mm. Not only were they all growing nicely, they were well fed, with all but the smallest one weighing in at over 400g, little’un weighed 360g. It is no surprise really, they had an excellent larder to see them okay for a while:

Following on from there we headed over to Drill Farm, just west of Plain Farm. Last year this box produced three young, which we first saw very young in mid-June, and which we ringed in late July. This year, two adults left the box as we approached and on checking there were four very young chicks in the box and a couple of eggs. I will visit again in a month to see how they are progressing.

From there it was a somewhat longer drive to Somerford Farm barn. This box had not produced anything until 2024 when we ringed a brood of three Barn Owls, last year it was just a single Jackdaw chick, so I was hoping for somewhat better this year. It was very pleasing to find an adult flying around the barn as we drew up. It was even better to find six chicks in the nest: three were large enough to be ringed, the other three will be large enough in a couple of weeks.

Finally, we went to the other Somerford Farm box on the bridle way through to the barn. This box was a disaster last year: we found a dead female in the box when checking in July. It really was a hard year for Barn Owls last year. This year we were very pleased to find six very early chicks in the box:

They were tucked up in two groups of three. We had been told that Jackdaws had been seen in and out of the box and you can tell, from the sticks, that they had started nesting there, but it rather looks as if they were evicted by the Barn Owls!

So, with Laura having to be away by noon, we packed up after this. This has to have been our best session so far since I started doing this. We checked six boxes, all showed signs of Barn Owl occupancy. In all we ringed 16 chicks, found 14 chicks to be ringed in the near future, caught one adult on the nest and saw another six adults on or near their nests, plus plenty of food availability. Looking forward to the next checking session next Thursday.

Our previous best in one session was 8! That was on three separate occasions 27th June 2025, 27th June 2024 and 29th June 2023. The first two did it from three boxes and the last from four. This was 17 from four boxes, with four more to go in those boxes plus two more broods of at at least 10 young in two other boxes.

Every year since 2013 I have written a consolidated report to the various landowners, primarily the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and Forestry England, to show the annual catches by site and then a consolidated picture across the Braydon Forest. The dates chosen are to ensure that we encapsulate each full season, rather than splitting the winter in two. It gives a better overall picture.

Those of you that regularly read my blog will know most of the sites: Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserves at Blakehill Farm, Ravensroost complex and the Firs plus Forestry England sites at Red Lodge, Somerford Common complex and Webb’s Wood. I wouldn’t say it is a labour of love: it is hard work but Forestry England are very generous in supporting my efforts, and I like to show my appreciation.

In that period we had some real highlights. From a single species point of view: for the first time ever we caught three Firecrest in the year, one each in Ravensroost Wood, Somerford Common West and Webb’s Wood. The ones in Somerford and Webb’s were first for the site, the Ravensroost one was the second for the site.

Another unprecedented catch was on the 13th August, when we caught three juvenile Redstart at Ravensroost Meadow complex. Before that we had only caught nine of them, never in consecutive years, with all of them being at Blakehill Farm, where we expect to catch most of our autumn migrants. We did catch two in August 2023, but never three, and never at Ravensroost.

However, as previously reported, 2025 was a great year for Marsh Tits in the Braydon Forest. When we look at the consolidated picture of this report, it is even better: we ringed 41 of them in the period and we processed a total of 51 individual birds. A remarkable year, considering our previous best was 44 individuals processed in 2017/18 and 29 ringed in 2019/20. We found 13 adults in breeding condition in 2025. The previous best was seven in 2017, it is usually just two or three. We ringed 28 juveniles in 2025, compared the the previous best of 23 in 2019, and a yearly average of 15. I hope for more of the same this year, and it has started well.

There were lots of other highlights for each site: return of Spotted Flycatcher to the Firs, the first place in the Braydon Forest that we ever caught them:

Perhaps better than that, though, having caught our first Garden Warbler for the Firs in 2019, and three more last year, all adults, this year we caught another three but this time, in June, we caught a recently fledged juvenile, which is pretty good proof of breeding at the site. We haven’t had that before:

Anyway, it has been an excellent year on so many fronts, all of the details are in the attached report.

A pretty unfortunate morning, for me at least, but for the team. As I was leaving home to go to site I came over unwell. Knowing that the team, Laura, Adam and Pete were already on their way to site, Laura and Adam coming from Cirencester, Pete from Malmesbury way, I forced myself to drive to site.

When they arrived, at 6:00, I gave them the choice of carrying out the session, without me, or going home. They chose to carry on, so I off-loaded the equipment and left them to get on with it. I went home to bed! I woke up at 11:00 when Laura rang the doorbell as she and Adam returned the kit to me.

Unfortunately, they had a very quiet session, just twelve birds caught, but they did catch two newly fledged Song Thrush.

Laura does seem to have a bit of a knack for this. Ringing in her garden last week she caught and ringed this:

The list from their shortened session this morning was: Great Tit (2); Song Thrush 1[2]; Blackcap 4; Chiffchaff (1); Willow Warbler 1(1). Totals: 6 adults ringed from 3 species, 2 juveniles ringed from 1 species and 4 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 12 birds processed from 5 species.

Not the best but better than nothing!

We actually got fewer full sessions in this month than last, which is quite remarkable given how bad that was. Despite that, we had our best April so far in terms of numbers and that is because we caught and ringed 72 more birds than any previous April.

As is clear, the improvement is in the number of birds ringed per session: an increase of seven birds per session.

Added to last year’s list was: Barn Owl, Corn Bunting, Kingfisher, Lesser Whitethroat, Linnet, Redstart, Rook, Skylark, and Tawny Owl.

Missing from last year’s list was Firecrest, Grey Wagtail, Jay, Long-eared Owl, Reed Warbler, Sparrowhawk and Tree Sparrow.

There are no huge discrepancies in the catch numbers where the species were caught in both years, with the exception of House Sparrow and Whitethroat this year.  

It is hardly surprising that we didn’t catch a Long-eared Owl, given that the one caught last April was only the second for the Group since 1st January 2013, and the first was five years before last year’s.

Speaking of owls: Jonny also ringed the first ever Tawny Owl pulli for the group, those and mum too!

The Lesser Whitethroat are the first April catch for 5 years.  Our Whitethroat catch was the best April catch ever  by some degree, six more than the previous best in 2021. There seems to be a pattern of “bests for five years”.

As for the Rook, it is only the Group’s second wild caught bird since I caught one in my garden in May 2015:

For absence of doubt, that is the one from my back garden 11 years ago. It was so cute – certainly the least aggressive Corvid I have ever handled. It was so busy snacking on the fat and minced peanuts in our half coconut shell that it didn’t notice me creep up on her until it was too late. She didn’t struggle and, unlike the sort of raucous calls one associates with the crow family, she made a mewling sound.

And, talking of cute, Jonny Cooper is leading two projects, as part of his role in the Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Records Centre, monitoring Lapwing and Curlew breeding in much of Wiltshire. So far this year it has started very well for Lapwing. He sent me this video of his Lapwing chicks from this year’s haul so far: a genuine “aah” moment!

Today’s session was at Ravensroost Wood, at long last. The last three times I have tried to get there it has had to be cancelled, either through bad weather or illness. Today I was scheduled to be at Blakehill Farm but decided to get to Ravensroost instead, with the weather forecast being absolutely perfect. We arranged to meet at 6:30, but the first thing I noticed, as I got out of my pit, was that it was already very light. So, that will be 5:30 starts for the next couple of months. Lovely! The other thing I noted was the temperature: 0^oC. Back inside to get a jumper!

There was a birdsong walk organised for the day with Robin Griffiths, the warden for Ravensroost, later in the morning, so he had kindly agreed to allow us to go ahead. In the event. They arrived at 9:00 and enjoyed getting to see some of what they had been listening to.

I was joined for the morning by David, Pete and Claire and with Rosie calling in for an hour at 8:00 before heading off to Blakehill Farm to organise a volunteer work party. We set the following nets:

Rides 1 & 4 = 2 x 18m 5-Shelf nets; rides 2 & 3 = 2 x 18m 4-Shelf nets and ride 5 = 2 x 18m + 1 x 12m 5-Shelf nets.

The catch was quiet all morning, just a few birds each round, but it was a lovely session. We were surrounded by birds flying around and about our ringing station. They were all in the tree tops or criss-crossing the main path where, of course, we don’t set nets. Particularly, lovely Long-tailed Tit activity right above our heads. Certainly the birdsong walk would have plenty to listen to.

We did catch though, and it started with a Willow Warbler that flew into net ride 5 as the first net was still being taken out of the bag! The catches were interesting: we kept catching “pairs” close together in the net. First pair were a male and female Blackcap: he was well endowed in the cloacal protuberance section and she had a fully developed brood patch and, from the weight of her, 21 grams, I would suggest she was carrying eggs!

Second pair were Nuthatch: he was well-developed and she had a fully defeathered brood patch, but not yet veined or wrinkly. We held them back until both were processed and released them simultaneously. They actually flew off together so pretty certain they were a pair.

The third pair were my absolute favourites of the morning:

The female was the first we have ringed this year, the male was a retrap, but not on our rings. It was a UK ring but it will be good to find out where it was actually ringed. One of the other good things about this was that the birdsong group had arrived and were full of how happy they were to have heard Garden Warbler as Claire arrived back with the two Garden Warblers. Some of them were using the dreaded Merlin to help identify some of the birdsongs they were hearing. We didn’t bother looking for the American Yellow Warbler it told them was on the site!

This was the list from the session: Nuthatch 1(1); Great Tit (3); Marsh Tit (1); Wren (1); Robin 2(3); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 1; Blackcap 6(2); Garden Warbler 1(1); Chiffchaff(1); Willow Warbler 3. Totals: 15 birds ringed from 7 species and 13 birds retrapped from 8 species, making 28 birds processed from 11 species.

One of the retrapped Blackcaps is also not one ringed by our group. Again, it will be good to see where it was originally ringed.

With the temperature rising and the birds disappearing, we did a final round and started taking down the nets and packing away the ringing equipment at 11:20, leaving site by 12:15. It was a lovely morning, a lovely bunch of woodland warblers, no Blue Tits, and lots of lovely people who were interested in what we were doing and why: all very friendly.

One footnote: I got a WhatsApp from Rosie. Whilst carrying out their repair work at Blakehill Farm they had the pleasure of watching a Short-eared Owl quartering the plateau no doubt looking for food!