With the weather forecast to be windy on Wednesday I decided to head into one of my woodland sites. Webb’s Wood was next on the list and, given the forecast wind direction, would be the most suitable. I knew that Rosie wouldn’t be able to make the early shift, having been out mothing until 1:00 in the morning, but was joined by Miranda for 5:30. We set up 9 x 18m nets in the most sheltered areas around the ringing station:
It wasn’t the busiest session we have ever run: on a par with most of our recent sessions. The list for the day was: Nuthatch 1(1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 1(2); Long-tailed Tit 2[1](1); Wren 2; Robin (1); Blackbird 1; Blackcap 3; Chiffchaff [1](1); Willow Warbler 1. Totals: 13 adults ringed from 9 species, 2 juveniles ringed from 2 species and 6 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 21 birds processed from 11 species.
We caught a small flock of Long-tailed Tits, all close together in one net. I was fully expecting one or two adults and a couple of juveniles and was somewhat surprised to find that there was only the one youngster. The retrapped Long-tailed Tit was ringed as age unknown in October 2019, so at least a fourth year bird. Not bad for a bird that has a typical lifespan of 2 years (BTO BirdFacts) and a maximum age from date of ringing of 8 years and 11 months.
There was another juvenile Chiffchaff in the catch. Apart from that, the best part of the catch was a pair of Nuthatch: a male and a female caught close together in the same net.
There were a few nice flowers around: the Cinquefoil, Potentilla reptans, was just coming into bloom:
Most of its flowers were still in bud. There was also this rather lovely blue flower which I didn’t know, but on further research is known as the Skullcap, Scutellaria galericulata:
Having caught just 10 birds between 6:00 and 11:00 we decided to pack up. Naturally, next round we caught 6 birds and in the following round another 4, as we were closing up the nets. We were off site at about 12:45.
I had arranged with Rosie that we would go and check some Barn Owl boxes after she finished work Wednesday afternoon. I have the appropriate licences issued by the BTO on behalf of Natural England, as this is a Schedule 1 species, to allow me to do this. She and I headed off to check on the boxes around Webb’s Wood. These boxes are all on private sites, so I will not be identifying the exact locations. As we approached the first box to be checked, to the west of Webb’s Wood, the adults flew off from the box. Inside we found four downy chicks. One of them was reasonably large, but the others were too small to be ringed. We will revisit them in a week or so, by which time they should all be big enough for ringing.
The next box was completely empty: no sign of it even being used for roosting. It has been used previously, both for roosting and for breeding. Our third box also had both adults within. As we tapped on the box to alert any occupants that they were about to have visitors, the adults decided to leave. The second to leave left me with a lovely present:
They would make great dive bombers! Anyway, we did find one newly hatched chick and four other warm eggs. We will pay them a visit again in a couple of weeks. Our fourth box has been vandalised by squirrels: they have ripped open the bottom corner of the box and built a nest inside. At least, without further evidence, that is our current opinion. It is certainly unlike any bird’s nest that either Rosie or I have seen before. We didn’t get to look at the planned last box: someone had kindly parked across the entrance to that part of the farmyard we needed access to. I tried phoning the farmer but it was going to voicemail so, as it was already approaching 20:00, we decided to call time on the session. It is very pleasing that we have a 50% occupancy by Barn Owls of the boxes checked.
We will be doing a lot more box checking over the next week and then on throughout the summer. A long day but a successful one.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 