This is the second year of the BTO’s winter ringing project: a less constricted version of the breeding season Constant Effort Site scheme. The key differences are: fewer sessions further apart (eight sessions, two weeks apart) and recognition that supplementary feeding in winter can be necessary and is allowed. This year I have decided to use Somerford Common as the base now and going forward. On Saturday last I set up the feeding station. Originally I had planned to run the session on Wednesday, but my car had other ideas, breaking down again on Sunday evening. It took Ford Parts until Thursday to get the necessary replacement part, which scuppered that. Thursday afternoon I went over to site and topped up the feeders and cut the rides. It started to throw it down again just as I started clearing the last ride: so I got very wet.
I was joined by Laura and Adam, Teresa and Andy at 7:00 and we set up the following nets:
We will be using these net rides for each of the next seven sessions. The feeding station comprises an eight litre seed feeder and a two litre peanut feeder. It has clearly been found by some of the local birds but I expect them to get busier. Unsurprisingly, the local Blue and Great Tits are already cashing in.
The birds started arriving as soon as the nets were open, and they just kept coming all morning. Our catch around the feeding station was primarily the aforementioned Blue and Great Tits but we also caught a couple of Marsh Tit and Chaffinch, plus both Goldcrest and Long-tailed Tit in those nets.
Net ride 4 produced a less Tit-focused catch with another nice catch of Lesser Redpoll plus, thankfully, a few Redwing, after they seem to have gone missing at my sites in the last month. The catch for the session was: Blue Tit 17(13); Great Tit 16(7); Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 4(2); Wren 2(1); Robin 1; Redwing 3; Goldcrest 3; Chaffinch 1(1); Lesser Redpoll 7. Totals 55 birds ringed from 10 species and 26 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 81 birds processed from 11 species.
With both regulars, Nuthatch and Great Spotted Woodpecker, missing from the catch, this was a good return. The Lesser Redpoll number is already our second best for November, and it is already our best October / November catch.
My highlights of the session were not what you might think: Teresa, on only her second session extracting birds, and Adam kicking off his extracting career, were both extremely good under pressure, by making sure that they didn’t allow themselves to be pressurised. They focused on what they were doing, asked for help when they needed it, and we had absolutely no issues as a result, despite a busy session. A big thank you to Laura who, whilst not wanting to be come a ringer, is a great helper and her extracting skills are first class: hopefully it is genetic! She and Andy also helped by scribing and with the setting up and taking down: valuable non-ringing members of the team.
We shut the nets as we carried out the last round: a Blue Tit and a Great Tit managed to get themselves into the closed nets before we could take them down. We ringed the Blue Tit and released the Great Tit, as it was one we had ringed earlier in the session. Despite that, we left site by midday, after a very satisfying session.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 