Luke and I carried out project session 3 in Ravensroost Woods on Saturday. With Luke only on his third session and nobody else available, we only set nets in rides 1 & 2: I will attempt to get the rest done this week. It did mean that I could spend time with Luke and start him on extracting birds. Quiet mornings do allow for training to take place and this was the case on Saturday.
The list for the day was: Treecreeper (1); Blue Tit 6(2); Great Tit 1; Wren (2); Robin 1(1); Blackcap 5(1); Garden Warbler 1; Chiffchaff 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 16 birds ringed from 7 species; 7 birds recaptured from 5 species, making 23 birds processed from 9 species and a recapture rate of 30.4%.
Interestingly, there were no juvenile birds caught, which was a bit surprising given that on the Thursday I carried out a breeding bird survey on a site just outside Basingstoke, where the hedgerows and tree were full of juvenile Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits.
The highlight for the session though was not a bird but an orchid: a Bird’s Nest Orchid. I have seen them when past their best, but not in this part of Ravensroost and not in this condition. Luke took this photo and has allowed me to reproduce it:
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 