Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

A wind shortened session this morning. I was joined by Miranda, Laura, Steph, Ellie and Adam. Not forgetting Steph’s daughter Bea: full of energy, never stops smiling and keeps everyone entertained. It is a good job that I had this good team out today: predominantly female, three C-permit holders and Ellie, who will be put forward for her C-permit early next year, and Adam who will be put forward next year, as soon as he hits his 16th birthday.

We met at 6:30 and got on with setting up. The best thing about that team, I had so little sleep last night and was feeling pretty lousy, if I hadn’t had such a good team out, I would have cancelled. Instead, I delivered the equipment, set up the ringing station, whilst they did all the hard work of erecting the nets. I then went off home to get some rest and try and dial down the symptoms, leaving the team to get on with managing the session, knowing that they would be fine.

The first round was a good start: 24 birds about 20 minutes after the nets were opened. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got, and the rest of the morning was just three or four birds each time. We ended up on 41 birds, of which 31 were Blue or Great Tits. This is somewhat surprising, as I only set up our two feeding stations there late yesterday afternoon, and they certainly hadn’t taken advantage of them. Presumably just early feeding flocks gathered, as it also included six Long-tailed Tits!

I returned to the team at 10:30, by which time the wind was really getting up. We shut the nets along the main path first: they were the most exposed and they were now catching was leaves. That was then followed by shutting the rest of the nets and taking down.

The list for the session was: Blue Tit 13(2); Great Tit 11(5); Long-tailed Tit 5(1); Robin 1(2); Goldcrest 1. Totals: 31 birds ringed from 5 species and 10 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 41 birds processed from 5 species.

We did have one bird worth singling out for mentioning. It was a Great Tit:

It rather looks as if it has avian pox. This disease arrived in the UK, in the south-east, in about 2005, and spread very rapidly westwards and northwards. It isn’t restricted to Great Tits, but they do seem to suffer from it more than most other species. This is the first Great Tit I have seen suffering from this for a very long time – probably a decade or more.

One of the benefits of ringing birds is that you can get to follow what happens with resident species. I am pretty confident that birds can recover from avian pox. How do I know? I didn’t used to ring birds suffering from disease. One Great Tit that I ringed in Ravensroost Wood we retrapped later, and it had developed the lesions and growths associated with avian pox. A few years later we caught it again: completely clean of any growths but there was residual scarring. It had survived the disease and recovered.

Anyway, with the team being extremely efficient, we were packed away and off site by just past 11:10.

A couple of final points: firstly, when I went to set up the feeders on Tuesday afternoon I was trying to turn into the site. Unfortunately, a dog walker has parked her car right across the entrance. What is it about dog walkers that makes them think that rules don’t apply to them? She parked adjacent to this sign:

I hit my horn once and she went ballistic. By the time that woman moved her car there were a dozen cars queued up behind me: totally inconvenienced because of her ignorance (I bet most were blaming me though). It is like the nature reserves with signs saying “Please keep your dog on a lead” and “Please pick up after your dog”. They have that latter sign at the Forestry England sites, and dog walkers take as much notice of those as they do on nature reserves.

The second point that came up: soon after I got back at 10:30 we heard the hunting horns from the Vale of the White Horse Hunt. Next thing there were hounds running all over the B4696 road that runs from Wootton Bassett to Ashton Keynes. The only good thing I will say about them: two of the riders used their horses to act as a barrier to the entrance so they did not let the hounds into Red Lodge – but that was also why they were holding up the traffic on the B4696, as they moved them across from White Lodge Farm to Oak Copse and Maplesale Farm (I really must have a chat with the farmers at White Lodge Farm, who seem to be very keen on supporting wildlife, to see if they are trespassing.). Who lays a trail that runs across a busy main road? Did they run the trail past the rural police unit and did the police approve it? If the police approved it, why weren’t they there to control the traffic? Were they breaking the law? (Of course they were: regularly trespassing on Wiltshire Wildlife Trust nature reserves, as I have mentioned before, having had direct experience of them doing so on two occasions at the Firs. If it applies to Wiltshire Hunt Sabs and monitors, it applies to them as well.)

This year has been pretty weird: some very good catches and some absolutely awful sessions. With the feeding station in place in January and February we had decent catches of 110 (62 ringed 48 retrapped) and 63 in February (24 ringed and 39 retrapped but, outside of that, catches of 13, 12, 9 and 14 have been hugely disappointing. To be fair, we have had the same pattern in all of the Braydon Forest woodland sessions. We had planned to go to Somerford Common on Wednesday but, unfortunately, I had a stinking cold come on Tuesday and it hasn’t fully gone yet. On Tuesday morning I had popped over to Somerford Common and set up a seed feeder and a peanut feeder. Having decided to change Saturday from Ravensroost Wood to Somerford, because the logging work has started, and I wanted somewhere where the bird life is undisturbed, and as Somerford had the feeding station set up, it seemed sensible. On Thursday afternoon I went to check on the feeders. They were both about half empty, so I topped them up. Arriving on site this morning I went to check the feeders: same as Thursday, so I thought that was a good sign, but didn’t expect what actually happened.

I was joined for the session by Laura, Adam and Ellie at 7:00. Laura’s hubby Mark also came along, and did a great job of brush cutting a couple of our somewhat overgrown rides, whilst the rest of the crew got on with setting up the other nets. He doesn’t ring but is very helpful and helped with the nets once he had finished strimming. A little later in the morning we were joined by Laura’s friend, Jo, and her partner. Jo is based in Reading and interested in the possibility of taking up bird ringing.

We set the usual nets and, whilst the others set up the ringing station, I went and set up my lures for the session. I had Redpoll, Siskin and Marsh Tit on three lures and one, having seen that a ringing friend in Suffolk had his first Redwing of the season, I thought I would try a lure for them. I wasn’t confident, as we only caught one Redwing at Somerford Common in the autumn winter period 1st August 2025 to 31st March 2026. To be honest, we only caught nine across all of my sites in that period. So this was pleasing:

It worked! We actually caught three in total: so a third of last winter’s catch already.

As I was putting up the lures near the feeding station the birds started arriving. And then the Blue and Great tits just started piling in. 56 birds in the first round: 32 Blue Tits and 17 Great Tits! I was particularly pleased to catch three more Marsh Tits: one new and two retraps. It is going well again this year.

This was the list for the session: Nuthatch 1(2); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 40(20); Great Tit 29(7); Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit 1(3); Dunnock 1; Robin 4(1); Redwing 3; Goldcrest 4; Chaffinch 2; Redpoll 1. Totals: 87 ringed from 11 species and 34 birds retrapped from 6 species making 121 birds processed from 12 species.

Apart from our first Redwing of the Autumn we also had this:

Our first Lesser Redpoll of this Autumn : species or subspecies? Genetically a subspecies but recording what you find is largely left up to the individual doing the data entry and no enforced uniformity by the powers that be.

So many titmice. Lots of biting and sore fingers. I did feel a little sorry for this Great Tit though:

Another unusual catch was this:

This isn’t the first time I have seen this, but it is the most extensive example I have found. I presume it is a form of melanism.

Anyway, Ellie had to leave at 10:30 for work at lunchtime, Mark and Adam had to leave just after 11:00 as Adam was attending an educational briefing event in Gloucestershire. The wind had got up and, although the sun was nice and warm, the wind, coming from the north, was bitterly cold. With Laura, they rescued the nets along the main path from the brambles, took out as many leaves as they had time to, and took down. Laura and I extracted the last seven birds from the top nets, then closed and emptied those nets and took down, clearing everything away by 12:15.

So, why is this a record session? It is our largest ever catch in Somerford Common. In fact, it is our largest ever catch in any of our Braydon Forest Woodlands. We have had bigger catches: but at Lower Moor Farm or Blakehill Farm, our key Autumn migration sites. Our actual biggest catch was 140 at Ravensroost Meadow Ponds on 2^nd September 2017: unsurprisingly that was much more autumn migration heavy, with loads of warblers, 25 Swallows being the biggest contributor, and a nice haul of 18 Goldfinches.

Anyway, it was a refreshing change from the recent small catches.

Attached to this post is the annual review of the SPRRG 2026 season. It is such a huge improvement on last year. Thanks to Dick for allowing me to publish it on my blog. I had the privilege of stepping in as Group trainer, when the legend that was Nigel Lewis passed, working with the Group during 2024 and 2025 and putting forward Justine Hadfield and Jon Pepper for their A-permits. Jon Keepen will be up for the same next season.

After my last, hugely disappointing, session at the Firs back on the 5th September, with its 10 ringed and three retrapped from just seven species, we revisited with some trepidation. I was joined for the session at 6:45 by David, Laura, Adam and Ellie, and we set the usual nets. The nets were open by 7:45 and we caught our first two birds just as we were finally opening them: one new and one retrapped Robins.

It was a bit of a frustrating session to start with: we would have a few birds and then a long gap before we caught any more. By 10:30 we had caught one less than the 14 we caught last time. All bar two of those were retraps, just so little to ring. We had a chat and decided that, if the next round was as bad as the previous two, we would give it up as a bad job, cut our losses, go home and get warm. Naturally, that meant that the crew came back with 14 birds to process. I say “the crew” because I spent most of the time at the ringing station leaving the others to do all of the work. In fact, they set all of the nets whilst I set up the ringing station and, at the end of the session, they did the taking down while I packed away the ringing station. They also did all of the net rounds and I only joined them for one. Resting my old legs!

The final round, when the crew shut the nets, did produce a final Goldcrest, which I processed. Most unusual for me to process a bird when the team are out. Anyway, the list for the session was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 7; Great Tit 2(5); Coal Tit 1; Long-tailed Tit 2(3); Dunnock (1); Robin 1(3); Blackbird (1); Goldcrest 1(1). Totals: 15 birds ringed from 8 species and 14 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 29 birds processed from 9 species.

It is most unusual for us to have a catch of Blue Tits with none of them being retraps.

Occasionally one will find people complaining that ringing causes the birds stress, make your own minds up:

Ironically, you can no longer make your minds up. Some coward from the ringing community complained about this photo because the bird was being “held on its back”! It wasn’t being held but I have been told by Ringing Licensing management at the BTO that it is “against scheme rules” and that, because it was lying on its back, its wings were being “held” by its own bodyweight – all 7 grams of it. It wasn’t, as my team and the observers at the time and place could tell you, when it was ready it rolled over onto its front and flew off. It’s so easy to make judgemental calls when you weren’t there.

Since I started this blog on WordPress in 2017, the traffic has grown phenomenally, given the size of the area that I cover. Yes, I have produced a lot of posts: 973 to date, which have been read 68,000 times and I have had visitors from 110 countries / self-governing administrative regions. So far this year alone, I have had just over 5,000 visitors to the site, from 75 countries reading 8,000 posts. I have had three complaints about photographs I have published which I think are for spurious reasons. I would love to know who made the complaints: too cowardly to do it in public!

On Wednesday we were planning to provide a session / demonstration for the Wildlife Trust’s Swindon Well-being Group. The wind and rain put paid to that, so I moved it to today. Unfortunately, the Well-being Group couldn’t make that, nor could Miranda and Ellie, who both had other commitments that they couldn’t get out of. That left Laura and myself for the session. We met at 6:45 (an extra 15 minutes in bed! Luxury!) and set the usual nets. we weren’t expecting a huge catch so, in that, we weren’t disappointed. Actually, we had a lovely session. Some nice birds, one special bird (f0r us), and lots of very friendly and interested people stopping by for a chat.

We were never rushed off our feet, just a few birds every round, but it was a good variety, and we had only our third ever Siskin at this site in 12 years of working it. It is also the earliest of the Autumn arrivals at this site, by 13 days. It is our second earliest from all of my sites: the earliest being four ringed at Ravensroost Meadows on the 16^th September 2020. (Where were they last Thursday, with our 13 bird catch?)

Every net caught this time, which makes a nice change. The list for the day was: Treecreeper (1); Blue Tit 4; Great Tit 1; Long-tailed Tit 3(2); Wren 2; Dunnock 2(1); Robin 1(2); Blackcap 2; Chiffchaff 1; Siskin 1. Totals: 17 birds ringed from 9 species and 6 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 23 birds processed from 10 species.

There was one unfortunately infected bird, this is a Dunnock that was ringed back in July 2023:

To be clear, had this bird had pox when we caught it first time round, we wouldn’t have ringed it. I am presuming that this is Avian Pox. Avian Pox was imported into the south-east of the UK from the continental mainland and spread rapidly outwards and northwards primarily in Great Tits, less so in Blue Tits. However, we have found it on several occasions in Dunnock, almost always on the feet, rather than the facial growths (as well as the body, leg and feet) found in the titmouse species. I thoroughly disinfected my hands and equipment and put the bag to one side for cleansing.

Whilst we were setting up the nets that run alongside Mallard lake, we heard an almighty splash, and then there were two enormous subsequent splashes, with water shooting up everywhere. Definitely not a bird (the local Mute Swans were over the other side of the lake), almost certainly not Otters, I would put money on it being one of the Beavers. We didn’t see this one, because of the foliage, but the last time I heard and saw that, I did see a Beaver swimming across to the Cormorant island. The Cormorants were very noisy this morning, lots of laughing and chattering.

It was lovely to see the three Great Crested Grebes out on the lake. In 14 years of ringing and birding there it is the first time I have seen that they have bred successfully at Lower Moor Farm.

Once again, the Great White Egret was strutting his stuff on the west bank of Mallard Lake.

We started closing the nets and taking down at 11:30. Naturally we caught another few birds, which meant we had to stop and process them before continuing with the take down. It was all finished and we were off site by 12:45.

On Thursday of this week, Wednesday having been far too wet and windy, we went to Ravensroost Meadows. I was joined by Miranda, Laura and Ellie at 6:30, and we set the usual nets. It was very dark when we got there but, as we were entering the site, a large flock of Pied Wagtails flew out of the reed bed that has now taken over the pond there, due to this dry weather and the ponds being empty.

Well, our session was very poor: Blue Tit (1); Great Tit 1(1); Wren 1(1); Robin 2(1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 1(1); Blackcap 3. Totals: 9 birds ringed from 6 species and 5 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 14 birds processed from 7 species. All of the ringed birds were juvenile and all of the retrapped birds, bar the Wren, were adult birds.

We packed up at 11:30, thoroughly disappointed at yet another disappointing catch.

With the weather for Saturday morning being bad in the morning, I decided to move our session at Red Lodge to Sunday. However, having seen the Pied Wagtails leave on Thursday morning, I fancied having a go at doing an evening session to see if we could catch them coming in to roost. David, Laura, Ellie and Adam all agreed to join me. We arranged to meet at 18:00. I got there at 17:40, Laura, Adam and Mark at 17:50 and David and Ellie at the agreed time. (Mark is Laura’s husband and Adam’s dad, he doesn’t ring but helps a lot with the grunt work, and is a good laugh to have around.) Laura and I did a quick bit of brush cutting around the periphery of the reed bed, and we had the nets erected by 18:15:

All nets were 5-Shelf Ecotones. 1 & 3 were 12m; 2 and 5 were 18m and 4 was a 6m. We then went and sat and waited for the sky to darken. The Pied Wagtails started to arrive earlier than expected. However, the first bird out of the net was a Robin retrap, that we had ringed on the 12^th September. However, earlier than expected, we extracted 12 Pied Wagtails at 18:30. That was brilliant. We processed them and then went to check the nets again: this time, at 19:15, we took another 41 Pied Wagtails out of the nets! Apart from that, there were plenty flying over the nets.

That was the end of the catch for the evening. We had kept the first batch of processed birds in their bags and, when it became clear that there would be no more birds, we closed the nets. Mark released the “stored” birds and the team released their birds after processing. It was dark but not dangerously so.

It was just the best session we have had for such a long time: and something completely new for my team. I have done a few night roosts myself, but the rest of the team hadn’t and, to be honest, this is the first time any of our sites has been shown to hold a roost like that, and we were so pleased to be able to take advantage. Equally, I was the only member of the team that had ever ringed a Pied Wagtail, so it was right to give them the opportunity to ring approximately 15 of them each.

Once we had processed them all, we furled the nets and left them in place, having agreed that we would come back for 6:00 this morning, open the nets and see what happened, We also agreed that we would skip the Red Lodge session and have an early finish.

It was pretty foggy on the way down. Cold and misty over the meadows. I got to site for 5:45 and had all bar one of the nets unfurled and open by 6:00 when the others arrived. We didn’t expect to get anything until about 7:00. What we didn’t expect, though, was to get absolutely no more Pied Wagtails. There was a retrapped Robin, one that we ringed on Thursday, and a new, juvenile Reed Bunting. We did check the reed beds, did have a bit of a walk in, but nothing flew out. It is really odd: they must have decamped in the dark.

Anyway, last night was so good that we were not unhappy. We took down at 7:30 and were home in time for breakfast at just after 8:00!

Prior to last night’s catch, the entire team had caught just 38 Pied Wagtails from 1st January 2013 until this catch last night. The best previous catch was nine, on two separate occasions. The first back in 2013 in the sewage works near Calne, and the other on farmland near Sutton Benger. My little team were responsible for just five, all singles, before last night. I say “my team”, actually they were all solo sessions by me. A real boost for our Pied Wagtail numbers! Although I just let the team process all of last night’s birds, didn’t take a single one myself, I had already processed 33 fledged birds and one pullus in my career – and 13 White Wagtails. That was due to my early days as a trainee where my trainer had access to the sewage works owned by Thames Water. The White Wagtails were all at the Marlborough sewage works.

I had a look back through all of our records, that go back to the year 2000 and the only catch higher than this one was way back on the 3rd January 2003 in the Safeway Supermarket (now Morrisons (but for how much longer?)) in Swindon! That was 67. The next highest is something like 49 but nothing closer and not many at all in the 40’s. Indeed it seems most of the higher catches were at Safeway Swindon, with one at Safeway, Devizes!

Just a fabulous session: from the pits of Thursday to the peak of Saturday evening – and I had recorded the football, so had Croatia 0 England 7 to look forward to and enjoy as well!

Not as many as this time last year, but still decent. I think that the key issue with the numbers are down to the dearth of birds in my woodland sites. Plenty of food but no water in the ponds and streams. The best catches this month were on Salisbury Plain, as one would expect with the autumn migration happening but, more significantly, on known wetland and marshy sites. I might have to look for some wetter sites for my team. They might not be getting fed up, but averaging 22 birds per session is not good, especially when you have three trainees out with you!

Added to the catch this month were: Barn Owl, Bullfinch, House Martin, Nightjar, Starling, Stock Dove, Swallow and Tree Sparrow. Missing from this month’s list were: Coal Tit, Garden Warbler, Mallard, Nuthatch, Skylark, Whinchat and Woodpigeon.

The Stock Doves and Barn Owls were pulli. I was particularly pleased with the Barn Owls as, when I checked the box in May its front had been removed and we had to find it and refit it. When we opened it up again we found this pair:

The first Nightjar the group ringed was back in 2020. Thanks entirely to Ian and Andy’s efforts on their Salisbury Plain sites, the number has increased pretty much year on year. Last year it was six, this year it is seven, thanks to the second ever September catch. The previous September bird was in 2023.

Something good is happening with our Stonechat catches. This year we have, so far, caught 28 of them. A phenomenal 20 were with Andy and Ian on the Imber Ranges, 7 of them at Blakehill and one on a new site for the species, on a farm near Charlcutt. This is our best annual total, with three months left to go. Peak catches are between July and the end of November, so there is every chance of it improving still further. One key element about the birds caught on Blakehill Farm: it was only last year that the site monitors were definite that they had bred on the site for the first time. We are pretty confident that the four we caught in one session at Blakehill were an adult female and three of her brood: all together, same net, same time.

Most of our migrating warbler numbers were up a little, Blackcap showing the biggest rise, with 83 more birds than last year. However, Lesser Whitethroat were the same as last year but Whitethroat numbers were a little down, and the single Garden Warbler caught last year was one more than we caught this.

The key declines were in Meadow Pipit and our resident species: particularly Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit and Goldfinch.

On to October!

We do a couple of ringing demonstrations for the Swindon Wildlife Group each year: usually autumn and late winter. Today was our second of the year: and the most popular to date. Robin Griffiths, naturalist and organiser extraordinaire, told me that the whole thing was oversubscribed by over 100% of the maximum allowed. I really like doing them, for multiple reasons. The key one is getting the children involved, training them on how to safely handle and release a bird, as well as giving everybody the chance to see the birds up close and showing them about the ageing and sexing of them. I always start with an overview of the scheme, how it works and what the benefits are: allowing us to monitor the age, status and movements. I always illustrate that with how people thought that Swallows and Martins disappeared into the bottom of ponds in the winter, and why Barnacle Geese are so named.

I was joined for the session by Miranda, Laura, Adam and Ellie. We set the following nets:

The attendees arrived for 8:30, just as we finished setting up, and we had five birds to show: a Whitethroat, two Dunnock, Blackcap and a Great Tit. I am pleased to say that the rest of the morning went that way.

Most pleasing were the Meadow Pipits! In 2025 we only caught two in the whole year. When out checking the Barn Owl boxes last week I saw a couple of Meadow Pipits in the fields, so was hopeful we might catch a few. Yesterday morning I went to check on the site, to see what nets I was going to set, and I seeded the area that net set 2 was going to be set up with dried mealworms. It worked: 17 ringed and one retrapped. I will be interested to see where it was ringed, as it wasn’t one of my rings!

As you can see from the pale edges to the median coverts, this is a juvenile. The next photo shows the comparative colourations:

This was very satisfying but there was more:

Since 2019 we have regularly caught just two Linnets every year, and none in September. This morning we caught five! Their decline at this site is quite sad, and pretty well inexplicable. Nothing significant has changed but back in 2015 we caught 42 and the last good year was 2018, but with only 16 caught, and then it crashed completely.

This was then followed by this:It is simple enough to age: if you look at the head you can see that is still retaining a lot of juvenile head feathers. There were lots of feathers in pin under the wings. Also, the flank feathers were typically juvenile male:

The list for the session was: Blue Tit [1](1); Great Tit [2]; Dunnock [2]; Stonechat 1[2]; Meadow Pipit 3[14](1); Robin {1}; Blackcap [1]; Whitethroat [1]; Chiffchaff 1[1]; Linnet 3[2]; Starling [1]; Reed Bunting [2]. Totals: 8 adults from 4 species, 30 juveniles ringed from 12 species and 2 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 40 birds processed from 12 species.

The forecast for the morning was for virtually no wind, until about the time the attendees started drifting away, when a breeze would spring up – and that is exactly what happened. We shut the nets at 11:30 and started taking down, finishing at 12:30.

All in all, a nicely satisfying session. I know that the attendees were delighted with what they saw, and the organisers also showed their appreciation with a significant contribution to my costs. Next one will be in late February / early March.

I have to be honest, I am seriously thinking that I will have to either abandon my woodland sites for the time being or else set up my feeding stations much earlier than I would normally do so. After so many quiet sessions, so much effort and so many hours put into gathering fairly paltry numbers of data, it seems I have to make a choice. It would have helped if the weather hadn’t been so windy, so I could run sessions at Blakehill Farm and pick up the usual autumn migrants. we are there, to carry out a ringing session for the Swindon Wildlife Group, and the weather is, for once, looking hopeful. I have seen Meadow Pipits around the site, so fingers crossed. Anyway, to the source of my depressive introduction.

I was joined yesterday by Laura, Ellie, Claire and, after she had dropped her daughter off at breakfast club, Steph. Good people and good to spend time with, which is just as well. We met at 6:30 and started setting up. Because it was a large team, we set quite a few more nets than usual:

249 metres of nets set, five experienced ringers – all we needed was some birds. The first mishap: only two of my lures wanted to work. I fiddled around and managed to persuade another two to actually start working. I suspect that I have inadvertently put a .wav file on the SD cards, rather than .mp3.

To be fair, there were no further mishaps just very few birds: Blue Tit 4; Great Tit 5(2); Wren 1; Robin 1; Blackcap 5; Chiffchaff 2; Goldcrest 1. Totals: 19 birds ringed from 7 species and 2 birds retrapped from 1 species, making 21 birds processed from 7 species. All of the birds processed were juveniles except for the Goldcrest and one of the retrapped Great Tits.

So, because I processed one of the Chiffchaffs, that was five birds per ringer! Putting it another way: 0.084 birds per metre of net! The only consolation: our awful session in the Firs produced only 0.071 birds per metre of net.

Why did I process the Chiffchaff? I actually extracted the bird and it went very quiet on me, almost playing dead. So I tickled its tummy, blew into its mouth and put it in a bag and slipped it down my front, between my undershirt and my body. It works pretty much all of the time: after 15 minutes in there I could feel it wriggling against my body: I am never sure if it is the warmth or the smell that gets them active: all I know is that it works. Anyway, I processed the bird and it flew off nice and strongly, so I am happy with that outcome.

Anyway, we were amused for a good 20 minutes by an elderly woman who was power walking up and down the track: it was the way she looked like she was on a mission and span on her heel to turn just before she reached us. First time we thought she was coming to give us an ear-bashing about how cruel we were and how unnecessary it all is, but she didn’t, thankfully. They can be as rude as they like but I have to remain calm and polite! Mind we did have explanatory signs up everywhere around the net rides and at the entrance to the wood.

The gentle breeze turned into a much fiercer gusting wind at about 11:00, so we shut the nets and took down. We were off-site by midday.

I was joined by Claire and Miranda at 10:00 this morning to check on the boxes we didn’t do last week. We started at Lower Pavenhill Farm. Back in May we ringed seven chicks and left the eighth, as it was too small to ring. We drove carefully through the 40-odd mares and foals, plus a couple of stallions, down to the box. For once they ignored us completely, and we didn’t have to guard the car from getting licked or nibbled to pieces. On approaching the box a Barn Owl flew out. Looking in, the box was empty, apart from a mountain of pellets. I dug through the mass looking for signs of brood cannibalism, of which there were none, so I am pretty confident that the brood fledged successfully. The sheer number of pellets gave testament to that!

From there we went to White Lodge Farm. This is just over the road from Gospel Oak Farm. The first box is down the farm track and, until recently, had Jackdaws nesting there. This year we caught an adult male Barn Owl roosting in there back in May. Possibly the male from the brood at Gospel Oak. Anyway, Andrew, the farmer, had taken some video of a Barn Owl visiting their second box, in a small yard at the back of their house:

We went to check the box and had a lovely time with some very friendly, and totally gorgeous, pygmy goats. What we found was quite interesting: not Barn Owls but a squirrel dray. I wonder if the owl was visiting for food? Regardless, the lining of the nest box was primarily oak leaves and, as I pulled them out, the goats came over to join us. One was so keen he stepped up the ladder alongside Miranda! Anyway, apart from a slight worry that my companions might try to smuggle out one of the goats, it was a satisfactory conclusion. Hopefully next year we might find Barn Owls nesting.

From there we went to Waterhay. Back in May there was nothing to get excited about. Today was worse. These are the boxes:

The Chapel box (1) was empty again. I will move it this winter. There is a suitable tree about 10m away. For those who watched Poldark, the Chapel is where they filmed his wedding to Demelza!

From there we went to box 2: empty last time, empty this time. Last year the entire brood was predated before we had a chance to ring them: too small when we first saw them, dead and gone with signs of carnage when we returned a month later. Next was box 3. That had three Jackdaw chicks in it when we went in May. Last year we found three chicks at the same stage in the same box at the same time: they were all dead. No idea why. This year they had fledged successfully. Unfortunately, it also threw up the most tragic find we have had this year:

We found 10 stone cold Barn Owl eggs in the nest! They were at various stages of development but definitely dead. Box 4 we didn’t even get to. The field had half-a-dozen thoroughbred horses in it and, even before we had got into the first field, they were prancing around, snorting and totally neurotic. I decided that discretion was needed, especially as one of the crew had already stated her fear of horses and cattle.

From there we went to Swillbrook Farm:

We met with Chris, the head farmhand, at box 1. This is a typically successful Barn Owl box: falling to pieces and rotting in situ. Chris is going to replace it this winter. As we approached one bird flew out. Three young were ringed in May. Unfortunately, we did find the remains of one of the three, but there was no sign of predation in the box. However, the front of the box had fallen off and we did think it likely that this bird had probably fallen from the box and met its fate that way! Miranda was delighted: I have never seen so many Barn Owl pellets! She had already collected a load from Lower Pavenhill Farm, but this was way beyond that: a large bagful, which is why I am pretty confident that this box was successful! Miranda is Chair of the Malmesbury and District Natural History Society and one of their pleasures is dissecting Barn Owl pellets. I think her group will be well pleased.

Box 2 was in a tree near the entrance to the farm but that blew down and Chris repositioned it to its current spot two winters ago. This year we found a few pellets, so it is being used as a roost. Then to box 3. This was originally positioned in the small barn to the left of the tree, but that collapsed in the same winds that brought the tree down. Chris had, again, moved it to a new position. Again, this was a bit sad as, although no Barn Owls were involved, we found two addled Stock Dove eggs.

So, to sum up this year’s breeding season, we ringed 45 Barn Owl pulli, of which we are confident 44 fledged successfully from 9 boxes, an average of 4.89 per box. Definitely our best ever year. The previous best was in 2021, with 26 from 8 boxes, i.e. 3.25 per box! Quite astonishing. Jonny Cooper started ringing Barn Owls independently, but as my agent under my schedule 1 licence, since 2023. In that first year he ringed 1 pullus, 2024 it was 2 from one box, last year was four from two boxes and this year a mere 42 from 11 locations: 3.82 per box. He has also managed to catch and ring seven adult owls this year. It had clearly been a bumper year for voles and field mice, unlike last year. We found no evidence of any non-rodent predation in the boxes: no Starling or Goldfinch remains.

Jackdaws were pretty standard for us: six pulli split between two boxes. For the last three years running we have found no Stock Doves to ring. Jonny has had a much better year with them than we have with 20 pulli ringed from eight nests and a couple of adult birds.