It has been a pretty frustrating year for my team in the north of Wiltshire, with catches well down on previous years. The arrival of Meadow Pipits at Blakehill Farm always gives a welcome boost to numbers and, with a nice catch last week on the western side of Blakehill, I was looking to see more of the same on the eastern side. September has always been an excellent month for ringing at the Chelworth side of Blakehill Farm, boosted by large numbers of Meadow Pipit.
I had a lot of team members wanting to join me for this morning: my most long standing C-permit holder, Ellie, trainees Miranda and Teresa, and helpers Laura, Adam, Andy and (later, much later, Mark) signed up for the session. As a result, I decided to set rather more net than I have done recently:
I put on lures for a variety of migratory species on rides 1, 2, 4, 8 and between 9 and 10 and for Meadow Pipit in the middle of the Mipit triangle. Unfortunately, we still did not manage to catch any Stonechat or Whinchat this morning. The frustration is that they are there on site, we just don’t seem to be able to draw them in. Usually both species are nailed on in September at this site.
We had arranged to meet at 6:30 but, my having woken up at 5:00, and dozed until 20 minutes later, but couldn’t spin it out any more, I was on site by 6:00 and managed to have nets 8 and 9 set up before the others arrived. We had all nets open just before 8:00, and caught our first birds straight away. Then we had a bit of a stutter until birds started to arrive at 9:00. This coincided with the sun beginning to warm the site and the insect life becoming active. The area where the nets are set is an extensive rough grass paddock that is grazed by cattle, but not by sheep, and which has not been cut mechanically for over six years. Although there are not masses of wildflowers, it is absolutely buzzing with insect life. The most obvious at this time of year are the craneflies, and we are pretty certain that the arrival of the Meadow Pipits is a happy result.
The catch was busy all morning and we ended up with a total of 70 birds processed: Blue Tit [4]; Great Tit [4]; Wren [1](1); Dunnock [1]; Meadow Pipit 3[39]; Robin (1); Blackcap [4]; Whitethroat [1]; Chiffchaff [4]; Reed Bunting [7]. Totals: 3 adults ringed from 1 species; 65 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 2 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 70 birds processed from 10 species.
The Meadow Pipits were there in good numbers, as hoped for. All bar six were caught within the Mipit triangle, responding to the lure. One of the most regular catches at Blakehill in the autumn are Reed Bunting. With another seven today, nine for the month so far, it looks as though this will be comparable to previous years. They were all juveniles: not the easiest birds to age, particularly as the adults are all finishing or finished their post-breeding moult. One of the key distinguishing features is the extent of the black patches on the tertials: narrow and pointed on a juvenile’s wing, broad and squared off on the adult.
Juvenile Reed Bunting, Emberiza schoeniclus
So, why a “breakthrough”? This is the second largest catch my team has managed this year. The largest was at the feeding station at Somerford Common back in February, when food was scarce. Since then we have been grateful if we have managed to catch 30 or more birds in a session. It has given plenty of time for a relaxed approach to training, but the sheer enjoyment of a busier, bird rich session has been missing. This was certainly the most enjoyable session of the year so far, and everybody enjoyed it and got to process a decent number of birds.
The only slight downside to the morning was nothing to do with our activity. Adjacent to the reserve is a field where a local model aeroplane club meets to fly their toys. Their agreement is that they fly their models over the fields adjacent to the reserve, but that they do not fly them over the plateau, so that they don’t disturb the cattle or the wildlife. Unfortunately, not every member of the club cares to honour that agreement, and at about 10:30 this morning one of them turned up and started buzzing the plateau with his toy. It definitely impacted on the birds out on the plateau, clearly disturbing those in its flight path. He didn’t last long: possibly when three of the team started walking in his direction, although all they were going to do was to check nets, he possibly decided that they might be coming to discuss his activities and that he didn’t want to have that discussion. Just as well as, although I was out on the plateau, being annoyed by his intrusion, I was going to go and have that discussion when I had finished my round.
We were lucky with the weather. I took a chance on the forecast, which was for a relatively low base wind speed, but with that building up from 8:00 and with it gusting to 15mph quite early as well, as the plateau nets would be exposed to the projected westerly winds, but I wanted to go for migrants and Meadow Pipits. In the event, we had no issues with the wind until gone 11:00, whereupon we closed the nets, we did it in a slow sequence, so we could continue catching birds in the less affected nets, starting with the most exposed (8, 9, 10), finishing with the most sheltered (1 & 2, protected by the hedgerow). With such a good sized team out it was a quick and easy take down, with last birds extracted and processed at 11:45 and the team off site by 12:15.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 