Another good month for the team, with our best October to date, and some excellent catches to boot. The stand out has to be Jonny’s capture and ringing of a Lesser Black-backed Gull that he rescued from a bramble thicket at Langford Lakes yesterday. Rob is the only other one of our group to have processed them in Wiltshire: three recaptured at Langford Lakes in February 2012. These had arrived from Heligoland, a North Sea island about 70 km north of the German mainland, rather than the Cotswold Water Park where there is a pretty decent roost. Andy had a Fieldfare at his SPTA site. This is actually our first October Fieldfare! Most are caught in November: but this one turned up a day early!
As well as the two mentioned previously, added to our list compared to last year were one each of Grey and Pied Wagtails plus six Stonechat: three at Blakehill (including one that was so heavy that DemOn queried it), two at Andy’s SPTA site and one at Langford Lakes.
Missing from the list this October were Brambling (the two last year were the earliest we have caught in the autumn, and the first for Webb’s Wood), Jay, Kingfisher and Whinchat. Disappointingly we have caught no Whinchat this year. For the second year running Blakehill Farm had plenty on site on migration but they managed to avoid my nets.
There was a huge increase in the number of Meadow Pipits caught: more than double last year. But then, last year I didn’t get to ring Blakehill in October, where a reasonable proportion of them are caught. There were significant increases in Blackcap (hanging on or just arriving?), Blue Tit, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, House Sparrow and Yellowhammer. Goldfinch numbers were well down but not sure why: the same sites, the same number of sessions.
Here’s to a good November (if it stops raining and the wind calms down)!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 