With Saturday being a wash out I was rather desperate to get out so, despite a weather forecast that said it would be gusting to 40mph, with a base speed of 20mph, I decided to risk it and head for Lower Moor Farm. I was joined by Rosie and Teresa on the ringing side, Andy to help set up and, for the first time, Emily and Justine. Emily has done a little ringing whilst at University and Justine is a raptor specialist, working with a group on the west side of Salisbury Plain, who has done virtually no mist netting and, as a consequence, no small Passerines or near-Passerines. This was an introductory session for both of them.
We met at 7:30 and set the following nets:
With two teams setting up the nets they were up and open quite quickly. As forecast, it did start out quite windy but, fortunately, the gusts were intermittent and the gaps between gusts got longer as the morning progressed. In the event it meant there was very little interruption to the ringing between 9:00 and 11:00 and we had a reasonable catch for this site for this time of year. We don’t have feeding stations set up there, so I don’t expect the level of catch like we experienced at Red Lodge last Friday.
The list for the session was: Nuthatch (1); Treecreeper 1(1); Blue Tit 4(3); Great Tit (1); Long-tailed Tit (2); Wren (1); Redwing 1; Blackbird 2; Goldcrest 4(1); Bullfinch 3. Totals: 15 birds ringed from 6 species and 10 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 25 birds processed from 10 species.
Our run of Bullfinch captures continued, with another three ringed this morning. Unfortunately, a fourth had to be released unringed as, like several of the Chaffinch we have caught recently, it had early signs of the Fringilla Papillomavirus infection on its legs. We did have a couple of males this time:
Male Bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula
One of the most beautiful of our resident birds. Alongside these, we had another small catch of Goldcrest: much to Justine’s delight, as she got to ring her first of the species. She also got her first experience of ringing / being bitten by Blue Tits. As someone used to dealing with Kestrels, Barn and Tawny Owls, she was somewhat surprised at how bitey, and how painful, they can be.
Emily also got to experience Blue Tits for the first time and also her first Bullfinch.
With the wind finally getting strong again, we closed the nets at 11:30 and took down, leaving the site just after midday. All in all, a small but enjoyable session and a couple more people interested in doing more bird ringing with me.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 