My car was in the garage yesterday, costing me just the £860 for a service, two new tyres and windscreen wipers plus its MOT, so I put off the midweek ringing session to today. (Add in the £370 for insurance makes this an expensive month – good job I don’t need to order any rings or nets!)
The first thing to say: it seems to have got lighter a lot earlier over the last week. Last Wednesday, when we last got out, it was still pre-dawn darkish at 7:00, this morning it was full daylight by then. Oh well! It will be 6:30 starts for a few weeks now!
Anyway, I was joined by Miranda and Laura for the morning. We met at 7:30. Knowing that there were only the three of us, and that Laura had to leave at 10:30, we didn’t set too many nets:
We had the nets open by about 8:15 and started catching at about 8:30. This was our first visit to Lower Moor Farm this year and I probably will not be back for another month. This site has no feeding stations set up and the catch is usually low this early in the month, with the exception of 2021 when we had 40. Today lived up to the average: with just 18 birds caught from eight species: Great Tit (2); Long-tailed Tit 4; Wren 1(1); Dunnock 2; Robin (1); Redwing 1; Chiffchaff 1(1); Goldcrest 3(1)). Totals: 12 birds ringed from 6 species and 6 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 18 birds processed from 8 species.
The Redwing capture is our first at the site this winter. When I started ringing at Lower Moor Farm we would catch good numbers over the winter. However, since 2018 their numbers have plummeted at this site, and this catch size has become the norm rather than the exception. I cannot think of any particular reason why: there have been no management changes that would explain this.
With the numbers having just drained away by 10:30, Miranda and I packed up at 11:00. Again, we had some nice interactions with reserve visitors and some of the Care Farm team and their charges. For once, apart from the first person we encountered when driving onto the reserve, all of the dog owners had their dogs on their leads: especially Miranda’s son, Eliot, when he arrived with her spaniel Percy. He was very excited to see her (the dog, Eliot knew she would be there) but after 10 minutes made it clear he wanted to continue his walk!
We were off site just before midday. Despite the low number it was a very pleasant morning spent at one of my favourite sites. Whilst waiting to do our net rounds we had plenty of time to enjoy the Great Crested Grebes and Tufted Ducks on Mallard Lake, and the Grey Herons nesting in the trees between Cottage Lake and Swallow Pool, and flying down to feed on Mallard Lake.
Having realised how early it is getting fully light now, I made the reluctant decision to meet up at 6:30 this morning. I am delighted to say that the Trust have replaced the horrendous padlock that took me half-an-hour to open last session. This one allowed you to enter the code easily, and opened straight away. We set the usual nets for this time of year, as per the previous reports.
I went out Friday morning to top up the feeding stations. Walking back to the car I heard the distinctive drumming of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker! Unlike last week’s fabulous double Lesser treat, yesterday morning I had remembered to take my binoculars with me and I got some decent views of the bird as it flew between four of the tallest trees in the south end of the wood (compartments X and Y on the map). Today we had the pleasure of that bird drumming alongside our ringing station, on and off, all morning. Unfortunately, as well as forgetting to take my mobile phone with me, I forgot my binoculars. It would have been nice to catch one, but it was not to be. We had to make do with three of its larger brethren instead.
The weather was damp and dull all morning: it didn’t rain but it was just moist and the sun didn’t break through once. It is actually good weather for ringing, as the nets are much less visible.
We knew that the catch would be titmouse heavy: one of the peanut feeders topped up at 11:00 yesterday morning was already empty. As soon as the nets were open, about 7:30, we started catching and, as expected, lots of Blue and Great Tits. There were a number of fairly small, regular catches until 9:30 when we caught over 50% of the session’s total. It also produced the best variety of species caught. I was particularly pleased when I ringed our tenth Marsh Tit of 2026 and our 25th retrap of the year! In terms of retrapped birds, that is nearly 50% of what we retrapped last year, and a lot more than 50% of every previous year.
The list for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1(2); Nuthatch 2; Blue Tit 20(12); Great Tit 7(9); Coal Tit (2); Marsh Tit 1(3); Long-tailed Tit (1); Wren 2(1); Dunnock (1); Robin 3 (1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird (1); Siskin 1. Totals: 38 birds ringed from 9 species and 33 birds retrapped from 10 species, making 71 birds processed from 13 species.
Having forgotten my phone, I did not have a camera to take photos but, happily, Mark arrived halfway through the morning in time to take this photo and the video. The real highlight was our first Siskin of the year: in fact, our first Siskin of the winter!
Adult male Siskin, Spinus spinus
We had a very pleasant morning, lots of interested passers-by. Unfortunately for them, their stopping to chat always coincided with the break between finishing processing and going for the next round. One couple did get to see the Great Spotted Woodpecker that Adam ringed, but only because I sent him down to meet them as they were walking up the hill, having been very interested in what we were doing when they passed us on their way into the reserve.
The cutest moment of the morning was this:
Adam processed both Nuthatch: a male and a female. The female was clearly attached to him, she would not let go! Actually, I think she found him tasty: as well as holding on to him, she gave him a good pecking! For the absence of doubt, she flew away strongly when he eventually managed to persuade her to stop holding on and pecking him. Actually, he took quite a lot of pecking from the female Great Spotted Woodpecker he extracted and ringed as well: I think we can say that he was well and truly hen-pecked this morning!
We closed the nets at 11:00 and processed the last few birds before taking down and packing away. With just the 12 nets to take down, we were off site by 12:15.
One footnote: when I arrived to top up the feeders yesterday I noticed this:
I believe the only “moron” in this episode is the person who wrote that: less than 3m from the gate, before you get into the reserve is a stile that leads directly to the path they wanted to access! It is hard to understand the thought processes of someone who thinks that a nature reserve is managed for the benefit of anything other than the plants and the wildlife.
Anyway, with the Trust’s permission, that top bar is now a lovely shade of black!
Not only was it our largest ever February catch but also our biggest ever average February catch. The numbers were definitely skewed by the number of Blue Tits, not ringed, as that was the same as last year, but in the number retrapped, with 132 this February and just 89 last.
We only managed 15 proper sessions in the month, and two of mine were truncated by the weather: the one at Somerford Common West we had to call off after less than two hours of the nets being open, with just six ringed and 12 retrapped. Despite that, we managed to average 56.3 birds per session. This was the catch:
We didn’t manage to match last year’s number of species but we have had a few that weren’t caught in February last year: Barn Owl, Tawny Owl and Sparrowhawk. The Barn Owls and the Tawny Owl were the result of Jonny cleaning out his owl boxes prior to the start of the breeding season. However, the Tawny Owl was sitting on eggs already. To me, this is the highlight of February.
Missing from the list this year were House Sparrow, Linnet, Snipe, Song Thrush, Starling, Tree Sparrow and Treecreeper.
So the numbers ringed were similar but the retrap numbers were just under 50 higher. The key thing about this is in the number of sessions, so the number ringed was lower: 426 from 26 species vs 446 from 29. Whereas the number retrapped was was 49 higher, and the average was 7.1 birds higher per session, although the number of species was lower, 15 vs 18. Overall, last year had a total of 31 species whereas this year it was only 26.
I cannot complete this without referring to my Marsh Tits: double the number ringed last February and nearly double the number retrapped! After last year’s excellent results, this is our best start ever: 9 ringed and 22 retrapped in the first two months of the year. The nine ringed is standalone the best for January and February in any year, the previous best was six last year. 22 retrapped is equal to the number in 2024, but more than in any other year.
Having covered off the true titmice, family Paridae, I am now going to assess the situation with the Aegithalidae, the Long-tailed Tit, Aegithalos caudatus. They are the only one of the eleven species of the family found in the UK.
Long-tailed Tit, along with House Sparrow and Nuthatch, are the three species we catch that, when the juveniles moult post-fledging, they moult into full adult plumage.
Long-tailed Tit, Aegithalos caudatus, unaged
This is a juvenile:
Juvenile Long-tailed Tit: note the brown tones on the head and back
With Long-tailed Tit being one of the earliest small Passerines to nest, it can be difficult to age them as early as the beginning of September, so trying to build up a picture of recruitment is nearly impossible. If you look at the table below of birds ringed it looks terrible for breeding statistics:
Table 1: Age classification of Birds Ringed by Year
It looks as if they can have terrible breeding seasons. However, when I graph it up, it looks a bit better than that:
As you can see, the trend of birds ringed by year is positive, those identifiable as juveniles is static, those unable to be aged accurately is positive and those identifiable as adults shows a slight decline. The overall trends in the population have, therefore, been calculated ignoring age classification.
Looking at the annual catch rate, both in total and individuals caught, i.e. multiple recaptures of the same bird, compared with the number of individual birds caught in the year:
Table 2: Total Catch vs Individuals Caught by Year
Although we average 106 individuals each year, in an average catch of 120 per year in the Braydon Forest, there is an overall decline in the catch size, but less of one where the individual birds are concerned. So we are, clearly, retrapping the same birds less frequently than we once did. That said, there are definite peaks and troughs on the annual catch, with 2024 being the latest peak.
As table 1 shows, the number ringed each year is more than a bit erratic, as this graph shows:
Again, peaks and troughs but the overall effect is rather less of a decline than that of the overall catch.
The next part relates to the population as it relates to the whole of Wiltshire and England. Because the 2025 values won’t be issued until the end of next Autumn, I have looked at data up to and including 2024. As previously mentioned, I haven’t done an age analysis, just overall numbers ringed.
To start with, the comparative numbers:
Table 3: Total Long-tailed Tits Ringed by YearTable 4: Proportional analysis of the Braydon Forest & WWRG against the England and Wiltshire totals
It is clear that the Wiltshire population ringed is a low proportion of the total ringed in England. When it is graphed up it looks like this:
So the overall trend in Wiltshire is upward, rising by approximately 1.2% over the 12 years of available data. That of the West Wilts group as a whole is rising at a slightly better rate of 1.6% over that period despite a a decline in the Braydon Forest catch of 0.3%.
When looking at how the proportion compares against the catch in Wiltshire we get:
Again, the growth in the West Wilts group contribution to the Wiltshire total is significant: from 29% to 58%, despite the decline in the Braydon Forest from 21% to 12% of the Wiltshire ringing catch.
I am intrigued to know what is causing the decline in the species in the Braydon Forest. The numbers were good up until 2016, when they fell dramatically. As in my previous posts, the same thing happened to Blue Tits in 2016, but they have recovered much better. Ever since then the numbers have been low, with a number spike in 2018, but not as strong as the spike in the group, but better than the decline in Wiltshire overall. Then, again, in 2024, a rise to 129, which is the best return as a proportion of the England catch we have had since 2013, at 0.91%. 2013 was 0.94% of the England total. The Group total in 2024 was the best we have had, at 2.8%, but this is in line with the way the population has increased proportionately over the years.
So pleasing to get out and have a proper session today and to have a good catch and lots of other things going on. The reason for the title: we were joined later on in the morning by the new Swindon Well-being Group run by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. They were a lovely group of people and hugely appreciative of our demonstrations and explanations about the ringing scheme plus being allowed to hold and release a few birds.
It was also a big morning for Laura and Miranda: my trainer, Dr Ian Grier, who helped me get my C- and then my A-permit, came along to assess their abilities and, I am pleased to say, that after the session he has confirmed that he is happy to sign off on their C-permits! I do feel a bit guilty: I omitted to tell Ian our start time. He assumed that I am as dedicated as he is and arrived at the Firs at 6:00. I got his text saying he had arrived when I crawled out of my pit at 6:45. I rushed to get out and ready and was on site by 7:15. It gave Ian a chance to have a look around the reserve before I got there. The rest of the team, Laura, Miranda, Ellie and Pete, arrived at 7:30. We set nets all of the way down the central glade:
With two teams working to get them open we had them up and ready soon after 8:00 and started catching straight away. It isn’t bad when you pick up two Nuthatch as you are walking back to the ringing station having only just opened the nets.
It was an excellent morning, there wasn’t much else we could have asked for: another two new Marsh Tits ringed, taking us to nine ringed already this year. To put that into perspective, the previous highest Braydon Forest Marsh Tit ringing catch in the first two months of the year was six, last year, our best year to date. Our number retrapped in these first two months is equal to our previous best of 18 in 2022. Obviously that means that it is our best ever start to the year for Marsh Tits.
We caught what is only our sixth Redpoll in the Firs: we ringed two in November 2016, two in February 2022, and now, one each in February and January of this year.
When the Well-being group arrived Ian took the star turn, showing them the birds and doing his party piece: stroking the belly of a Blue Tit, the bitiest bird in the wood, until it totally relaxed and just lay there in his palm until he turned it over and it flew away. I did most of the basic stuff on the purpose of the ringing scheme, how it works and what it delivers, with Ian filling in the bits I left out.
The list for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Nuthatch 2(2); Blue Tit 18(17); Great Tit 9(7); Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 4(2); Wren 3; Dunnock 3(1); Blackbird (1); Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 6; Redpoll 1. Totals: 50 birds ringed from 11 species and 31 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 81 birds processed from 13 species.
There were a couple of non-ringing highlights: my first butterflies of the year (two Brimstone) but the absolute highlight was hearing a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming away. Well, to start with, but when a second started up on the opposite side of the wood, that was just brilliant. Then a Great Spotted Woodpecker started drumming as well, which gave an excellent opportunity to hear the difference between the two. The Lesser drumming is longer and more metallic than the Great. The Great’s drumming finishes with a slight upturn or downturn in the sound at the end of the drum. It is the top bird on my list of birds I want to ring, for reasons I won’t give into, but are connected to why I changed trainer and was lucky enough to be taken on by Ian. Finally, when we went to close the nets, we heard a Green Woodpecker yaffling at the edge of the wood. All three heard in one session is not a common occurrence.
Another highlight was a Treecreeper in one of the trees adjacent to the ringing station. We spotted it flying in, and then spent five minutes watching it moving up the trunk, pecking into crevices after invertebrates. We do catch them regularly, but it is so nice to watch them going about their natural business.
We worked through until midday before emptying the nets one last time, closing them as we went, processing the last six birds, taking down and packing away. Before we left, just about all of the members of the Well-being Group came up to me one by one to thank me for allowing them to come and to say how much they had enjoyed it. That’s one of the reasons I like doing these sessions: people appreciate having the opportunity to get close to the birds and we get the opportunity to educate them on why bird ringing is important in conservation.
A big thank you to Ian coming all this way, from about 20 miles south of Devizes to Purton, and for being so helpful all morning and carrying out the assessments of Laura an Miranda and being excellent company and very entertaining. Also a big thank you for everybody in the team, who did most of the work this morning, whilst I am struggling with a back problem.
With the weather being so dire at the moment, it was nice to see a forecast for Saturday that said it would be cloudy with a <5% chance of rain, so I decided that we would try Somerford Common West, which I had planned to do on Wednesday, except gale force winds made that untenable.
I was joined by David, Ellie and Pete at 7:30 to set up. We were also joined by Ellie Jones, my second ever trainee, now with her A-permit and a very important position at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, who came along to help and chat and catch up. Steph and her daughter, Bea, joined us at 8:45, after having dropped her other daughter, Lillie, off at work. Lillie was the youngest ever ringer I have had work with me. I believe she was 7 when she first ringed a bird!
To start with it was dry, the trees were acting as a good windbreak for most of our nets, but we couldn’t set all of them because some were too exposed. We got everything set up, took the first few birds out of the net and processed them: and then the mizzle arrived. It would run for a bit, stop for a bit, and it was simply cold, wet and miserable. (Mizzle: if it’s able makes you Mizzlyrable! I came up with that during the session: that’s how good it was!) We put up with it for an hour and then decided to call a halt to the session. Not even two hours for catching.
The small list was: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Blue Tit 1(2); Great Tit 4(7); Coal Tit 1(1); Marsh Tit (1). 6 birds ringed from 3 species and 12 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 18 birds processed from 5 species.
We left pretty much at 10:15. Still, despite the weather, as Ellie J put it, it was more of a social occasion than a ringing session and I am lucky to have such a great team of people to work with.
It has been a long time since my last visit to do some ringing in Laura’s garden, eight months in fact. Like Blakehill Farm, you need a wind free day, and they have been very few and far between. Laura collected the nets, poles and other equipment on Monday to give her the opportunity to practice putting up the nets, furling them and securing them so that they don’t come undone overnight, as I am putting her forward for her C-permit this Spring. She, no doubt helped by Adam and Daniel, did an excellent job, with the added bonus that I could have a lie in and didn’t have to do any of the setting up.
Unfortunately, the flocks of Goldfinch, sometimes 50 strong, must have felt that something wasn’t quite right and they didn’t flock at all. The usual Blue and Great Tits arrived, including this rather sooty / dusty looking individual:
Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus
We did eventually catch a few Goldfinch, but the bird of the day was a female Great Spotted Woodpecker. It can be difficult to age them at this time of year, as they moult in strange ways. However, this one’s black plumage was just that, all black and glossy. Definitely a full adult: I meant to take a photo but it was released before I blurted out that I wanted to do so. Looking at my stock photos made me realise that I only have one of an adult female, must make sure I get some more.
The catch for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 15(2); Great Tit 4(1); Long-tailed Tit 2; Goldfinch 3. Totals: 25 birds ringed from 5 species and 3 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 28 birds processed from 5 species.
Not our greatest haul but one of the benefits of garden ringing is that it is somewhat more comfortable and relaxing, with coffee and biscuits on tap. Besides, the way the weather is shaping up we will be lucky to get more than four sessions in this month. Yesterday’s planned session had to be abandoned because, although the forecast morning rain did not arrive until the afternoon, the light winds turned out to be strong winds gusting up to 35mph, far too windy for setting nets and, coming from the East, bitterly cold. Grateful for small mercies! Fingers crossed for Saturday.
We were a little unlucky: whilst opening the nets a Goldcrest put in an appearance but decided not to hang around to get caught and Mr and Mrs Blackbird were happily hunting on the ground but just kept flying under the nets, until we lowered them almost to the ground, whereupon the pushed off. Oh well!
Our first opportunity to get out for ten whole days! A big relief. I got out in a light shower yesterday to top up the feeders for today’s session at Somerford Common. I was joined for the morning by David, Laura, Adam, Pete and Claire. We arrived on site at 7:30, having had to defrost our vehicles and to a temperature of -1oC. Thankfully with a clear blue sky, and very little cloud anywhere, it soon warmed up and we set the usual nets:
Once upon a time, not that long ago, rides 5 and 6 were key to a good catch. It was where we would catch Redwing, Goldcrest and Long-tailed Tit. All three of these have massively reduced in our catch at this site. Today those five nets produced a solitary retrapped Blackbird! There is no obvious reason why that should be the case but they have been very poor all winter.
Continuing the good start to the year, our first round produced three new and one retrap Marsh Tit. We caught another two retraps later in the session. In the first six weeks of this year, and in just six sessions, we have ringed seven and retrapped 17 Marsh Tits: looking good for another decent year for the species in the Braydon Forest.
We caught and ringed another two Chaffinch this session, but also had to let another three go: one had a mite infection, the other two had Fringilla papillomavirus.
The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1(3); Blue Tit 13(17); Great Tit 3(8); Coal Tit (7); Marsh Tit 3(3); Long-tailed Tit 1; Robin 1; Blackbird (1); Chaffinch 2. Totals: 24 birds ringed from 7 species and 39 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 63 birds processed from 9 species.
At 11:30, with the catch having died away, the breeze got up and we decided to close up and take down. Whilst doing so, Claire heard some bird calls she hadn’t heard before. When she described seeing a small group of five birds: one red and four greenish-yellow Pete played her the call of Crossbill, which she recognised straight away. They didn’t hang around for long but great to know they are about. I feel a session on the western side of Somerford Common coming soon: as that is where the main conifer blocks are. I will have to find a suitable pond! They are notoriously difficult to catch, as they stay in the treetops unless c0ming down to drink!
Anyway, we had a few more birds to process before packing away but with many hands making light work, it didn’t take long and we were away from site by 12:30. Well I would have been if Claire and I hadn’t gone Crossbill hunting!
We are going to try a few different net positions next time, alongside the treeline that lines the road down to our parking area. Forestry England have cleared the line within the paddock and we often see good numbers of birds, not Blue Tits thankfully, moving along that stretch.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, no ringing, it’s boring! So I thought, having looked at the population levels of the Titmice being ringed in the Braydon Forest, whether these changes were reflected in the split between young and adults. To do this I counted all of the birds ringed with a BTO code of 3 and 3J for the year, and then I counted all of those ringed with a BTO code of 5 in the next year. For adults I counted all in the year with a BTO code of 2, 4 or 6. Not 100% accurate as a code 2 in a year means nobody knows when it fledged. This should only be an issue for species like Nuthatch, House Sparrow and Long-tailed Tit where both adults and juveniles moult into full adult plumage in the autumn. Everything code 2 becomes code 4 on the 1st January of the following year. , code 4 also applies to all birds, except codes 3 and 3J, once the breeding season is over and the post-breeding moult is under way. Code 6 means that they are definitely fully adult but, again, that reverts to code 4 after the breeding season. I have included figures for 2025, which is a little unfair as we will almost certainly catch more of each age group between now and June / July when the 2026 youngsters will fledge, so take those with a pinch of salt.
Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus:
As the largest cohort of birds in the Forest, I started with Blue Tits. My previous post on their population in the Braydon Forest showed that it is relatively stable, but with a slow decline:
This shows clearly that 2016 was the worst breeding season for this species in the 13 years covered by the project. That shows in the stable trend line for adults but the decline in juvenile birds. When we look at the catch with juveniles vs adults as a proportion of the totals ringed we get this:
As you can see, across the entirety of the period, the trend in the catch is much more equivalent for both age groups than the numbers would indicate. The bar graph shows exactly the relationship between adults and juveniles:
The average split over the year is 80:20 and relatively stable, excepting 2016.
Great Tit, Parus major:
The previous post on the status of Great Tits in the Braydon Forest showed another species with something of a decline:
As you can see, both adult and juvenile numbers have declined in harmony with each other. When we look at the proportional analysis:
So, juveniles are increasing with respect to the number of adults being ringed. So, is the overall decline to do with a reduction in the number of adults surviving year on year?
As with the Blue Tit, the Great Tit clearly had a bad year in 2016, as the adults made up a higher than usual proportion of the total. Their average split though is 82:18, juvenile to adult.
Coal Tit, Periparus ater:
This species showed the biggest fall in [population over the period:
Looking at it in pure numbers, it does look as the key issue is adult survival. However, when you graph it up it is the juvenile numbers that show the bigger trend decline:
Proportionately, though:
Yet again, there is a slight increase in the proportion of juveniles to adults ringed across the period.
Again, as you can see, the proportions are largely juvenile birds. This time the ratio across the years is 84:16. Interesting to note that they were not affected in the same way as Blue and Great Tits in 2016, but did have a dip in the proportion of juveniles in 2018.
Marsh Tit, Poecile palustris:
Now to my key project species, to which I have already dedicated a lot of time, analysis and writing:
This is a real astonishingly different situation. Obviously, with a much smaller population, being a red-listed species, any changes are going to be amplified, so that needs to be borne in mind. However:
It is pretty clear what is happening here: juvenile survival is surprisingly strong, having started from a very low base, and adult survival is very much lower. Proportionately this is how it looks:
Obviously the concern is that, if we continue to have so few adults being caught, how long can the number of juveniles continue to increase?
I have absolutely no idea why the situation with Marsh Tits started with such a huge disparity between adults and juveniles in 2013. I hate to say it but perhaps my ageing capabilities for this species weren’t up to scratch in 2013, my first full year of solo ringing. (Then I purchased Jenni & Winkler: Moult and Ageing of European Passerines, the absolute bible of ageing, and have never looked back. First as a Kindle download and then the real thing when the second edition came out in 2020. Fabulous book.) Including that gives a proportion of 82:18. Excluding that year changes the proportion to 84:16. Obviously the unusual year was 2021: no adults ringed at all. I have never seen that in any of our regularly caught resident birds.
It is not that I am obsessed by titmice but they provide lots of data for looking at the health of our woodlands in supporting various bird populations.
With the rest of this week, and the start of next week, forecast to be wet and miserable it was lucky that today was forecast to be fine, after heavy rain all day yesterday. Sure enough, at 7:15 when I went to put the nets and things into the car, it was very wet on the ground but just a bit damp in the atmosphere but, by the time I got to site, the mist lifted and the humidity decreased to tolerable levels.
I was joined by Miranda and Ellie for the morning. We met up at 7:45 and set up the following nets:
Regular readers will notice that we did not set the nets along the track to the east of the ringing station. It is muddy at the best of times but, after the recent rains, it was an absolute quagmire and I felt we would be losing wellies every other step!
I topped up the feeders before we set the nets. I had planned to do it yesterday but the weather was so dreadful I decided against getting soaked. The first birds arrived at 9:00. As has become usual, the catch was Blue Tit heavy.
We didn’t have a stunner, like Monday’s Sparrowhawk, to relieve the constant pecking. A lovely male Chaffinch, a group of four Long-tailed Tits (one male and three females) and three retrapped Marsh Tits. It was a less pressured session than recent ones but we ended up with a reasonably decent haul: Blue Tit 24(11); Great Tit 2(1); Coal Tit 3(3); Marsh Tit (3); Long-tailed Tit 4; Robin 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 35 birds ringed from 6 species and 18 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 53 birds processed from 7 species.
The wind began to get up at 11:00, so we did a last round at 11:15, and closed the nets as we emptied them. We processed the remaining birds and started taking down and packing away. We left site at about 12:15.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 