It was nice to have a break in the rain this morning. Perhaps nicer to have much lower wind speeds. This session was scheduled for Somerford Common West and I was joined by Rosie, Justine and David. We met at 6:30 and set the usual nets:
The feeding station had only been refilled on Thursday, after an hiatus of 10 days, so I wasn’t expecting it to be particularly busy this morning. I was hoping that we might get an end of season Lesser Redpoll or Siskin this morning, as we have only had two of the former since the turn of the year, and none of the latter. However, having seen two Siskin in my garden yesterday, I was hopeful there might be the odd one still around. The simple fact is that my sites have not delivered a single Siskin this autumn / winter. That is a repeat of last autumn / winter. Prior to that they were a regular catch: not huge numbers, but regular.
Today’s session started pretty much as expected: Blue Tits, Great Tits and a Coal Tit, similar in the second round, with the addition of a retrapped Marsh Tit and a male Great Spotted Woodpecker. After that the catch was pretty bitty, with the odd bird hitting the nets. I am not sure what the reason for this was but net ride 1 was hopeless all morning, until the last round at 11:15, when it produced two Long-tailed Tits, more of which anon. I had lures on that ride for Goldcrest, amongst others. Goldcrest is generally a guaranteed catch in that ride: it is in amongst the conifers and you can hear them all the time, all year round, in that area. Not one today. Indeed, it was that net ride that delivered the bulk of the birds in the 81 bird catch of the 11th January.
Similarly, ride two was producing absolutely nothing until I put a lure for Goldcrest on there at 9:15. Almost immediately it produced the desired result: but it was just the one. I left the lure running for another hour with no result. However, after that time, I decided to see if I could lure in the Chiffchaff that had been calling around the ringing station all morning. Delightfully, it also worked:
Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus collybita
The list for the day was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 4(9); Great Tit 7(1); Coal Tit 1(2); Marsh Tit (1); Long-tailed Tit 2; Chiffchaff 1; Goldcrest 1. Totals: 17 birds ringed from 7 species and 13 birds retrapped from four species, making 30 birds processed from 8 species.
We did a catch a female Chaffinch but, although the right leg was clean, the left leg showed signs of Fringilla Papillomavirus, so we simply released her.
So, Spring in the air? Apart from the Chiffchaff, announcing his arrival on site and territorial aspirations, almost certainly male, but not yet showing the physical signs that would allow sex determination to be unequivocal (it probably was but it might not have been the bird we had heard calling). By contrast, the two Long-tailed Tits we took out of ride 1 were close together in the net. On inspection after ringing, one was unequivocally male, sporting a very clear and obvious cloacal protuberance. The other was, equally obviously, a female, with the cloaca clearly facing down the tail and her breast, equally clearly, starting to defeather, to develop the brood patch.
With the weather clouding over, the wind getting up and the catch having fallen away, we packed up at 11:30 and left site shortly after midday. It was slightly disappointing in that we caught only one finch, and couldn’t ring that, but adding yet another Great Spotted Woodpecker, to what is already a good total for us in the Braydon Forest, continues to be encouraging and catching our first Chiffchaff of the year is always a pleasure.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 