The plan was to run a session in Ravensroost Wood this morning, so Miranda, Teresa and I met at 7:00 in the car park. Unfortunately the padlock on the main gate of the reserve was seized solid. Despite the padlocks being the same make and model from the same supplier for all Wildlife Trust reserves, and their providing the keys that should fit all, they don’t always, so I actually have two keys. Neither worked, whereas they always have before. It is far too much of a distance to haul all of our equipment to the ringing site, so I decided to head over to Red Lodge. Our last effort there got rained off before we had finished opening the nets (one of those days when the weather forecasts told us it would be dry!), so it was next on the list to be visited, after Ravensroost.
As a result, everything was running about 30 minutes later than planned, so we had the nets open just before 8:30 – which is when we started catching birds.
We set lures for a variety of birds, all autumn migrants / winter visitors: Redwing being the loudest. There were also lures for Siskin and Lesser Redpoll. Mind, the first three rounds were fairly indicative of what was to come: two Great Tits in round one, a Great Tit and three Blue Tits in round two and two Great Tits and a Redwing in round three. This is the earliest in the autumn that we have ever caught a Redwing, by a whole two days! That was back in 2014. Apart from that, the earliest we had caught them at Red Lodge in the autumn was mid-November. We ended up with a total of six, with the last one caught in our last round at 11:30.
The star bird of the morning, however, was this beauty:
Male Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cannabina (photo courtesy of Miranda)
We catch very few in the Braydon Forest in the autumn, and have never done so before in October in Red Lodge. Webb’s Wood and Somerford Common are our more likely capture sites for this species in October.
Soon after this we caught a female Chaffinch. Not the first that we have caught in Red Lodge in October, but the first for five years. Again, a species we normally catch at the feeding stations in the winter months.
The list for the session was: Blue Tit 17; Great Tit 17(1); Long-tailed Tit 8; Redwing 6; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 1; Lesser Redpoll 1. Totals: 51 birds ringed from 7 species and 1 retrapped, making 52 birds processed from 7 species.
This is a very unusual catch for us. Obviously not the Blue, Great or Long-tailed Tits, but it is what is missing from the list: no Robin or Wren. I cannot remember the last time we had a proper session at Red Lodge where neither of these species were in the catch. Prior to this we had carried out 65 sessions in Red Lodge since 2013: 55 of those had either Robin or Wren or both processed during the session. It is over five years since neither species was caught in a session.
Somewhat more frustratingly, we had Nuthatch and Great Spotted Woodpecker calling all around us during the morning without catching any. But, the real icing on the cake (not the right term, but the right term would include the odd profanity) came as we were taking the nets down. The session had been forecast to be windy but, pleased to say that the nets were not affected until the wind really got going at 11:20, so we shut up shop at 11:30. As we were taking down net set 2, I heard a little “pitchu” call and a bit of a cackle, followed by several other calls and churring. At least three Marsh Tits basically saying “missed us”! I am sure those calls had a sarcastic edge to them!
We were away from site at about 12:30 after a thoroughly enjoyable session.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 