After an appalling week of ridiculously high winds, rain and hail, putting paid to any chance of getting out to do some ringing, it was good to finally have a break in the weather. The forecast for the first week of April is, however, looking as bad as last week. Getting out to the car and finding that the temperature was down at 3oC was slightly concerning, but it was dry and there was no wind. It soon warmed up, once the sun came up. This is always the worst Saturday in the year: the day before the clocks go forward, knowing that this time the following week will be 6:30. Much more civilised! We met up at Lower Moor Farm ready for our 5:30 start: it just seems so much earlier. I was joined at that unearthly hour by Rosie, Laura and Adam. The rest of Laura’s family, plus her sister and her family, joined us at the much more civilised hour of 8:30. At 9:20 Rosie had to head off to work but, with the early start, she did get to process a reasonable number of birds. Two days ago we were going to have a bigger team out, and I had planned to set quite a few extra nets but, due to unforeseen circumstances, two of them had to pull out, so we reverted to the recently used net setup.
We set the following nets:
The ringing station was set up in the picnic area, taking advantage of the excellent new bench / tables there. Mind, they were covered in ice and became very wet once it warmed up. I had to sacrifice my large species bird bag to dry it all off. The nets were open by just after 6:00 and we immediately caught our first bird of the morning:
Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla
This is my team’s first Blackcap of the year. I waited until it had been weighed to decide whether it was an overwintering bird on migration back to central Europe or an incoming summer visitor. As it weighed in at less than 18g, I decided it was a newly arrived bird. This is our second earliest catch of Blackcap at Lower Moor Farm. The earliest was a single bird on the 23rd March 2019. Apart from that, we had a catch of seven of them on the 31st March 2021. So, definitely not common at Lower Moor Farm in March.
The first full round (the Blackcap was found whilst I was setting out the various sound lures) produced 14 birds. Unfortunately, that was the biggest round of the morning. It is not that we had a disappointing session, far from it, but it could have been a lot better: there were so many birds around, but they seemed fixated on spending time in the treetops and not getting caught in nets.
So to that large session: another two Blackcaps (all males), three Chiffchaffs and two of these:
Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus
These two of these are the earliest that my team has ever caught Willow Warbler on any of my sites. In fact, there has only been one earlier catch of this species by anyone in the entire group: this year, just south of Chippenham, on the 21st March, by Jonny Cooper. Previously, one was caught at Langford Lakes, also by Jonny, roughly 60 miles further south in the county, on the 30th March 2023. There are no other March records for the West Wilts Ringing Group.
The list for the day was: Treecreeper (1); Great Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit (1); Wren 1(3); Dunnock 3(2); Robin 1; Blackbird 1; Blackcap 5(1); Chiffchaff 4(1); Willow Warbler 2; Goldcrest 1; Goldfinch 1; Reed Bunting 1. Totals: 21 birds ringed from 11 species and 10 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 31 birds processed from 13 species.
It was a pretty good variety within a relatively small catch. The Goldfinch. for example: whilst a good number have been caught by Ellie in the garden of the farmhouse over recent years on the opposite side of the lake, where we work on the eastern shore of Mallard Lake and along the Heronry Ride, we haven’t caught one since June 2018. Prior to that we would catch them regularly. It makes you wonder what changed back then.
One of the retrapped Dunnocks, NF32867, was ringed on the 7th May 2019 and recaptured exactly where it was ringed today: approximately 4 years and 11 months ago, without it having been caught again in between. Given how regularly we catch Dunnock at Lower Moor Farm, and how regularly we recapture them, that is definitely surprising.
Alongside our catch there was a decent variety of other birds around: Cetti’s Warblers were regularly splitting the air with their strident burst of song. A couple of Green Woodpecker were seen or heard, a couple of Song Thrush heard, with their highly variable repetitive phrases that make up their “song”. The Grey Herons are busy with building their nests in the trees between Cottage Lake and Swallow Pool. A pair of Great Crested Grebe were seen carrying out their courtship rituals on Mallard Lake. I see them regularly as a pair but, in over 12 years of visiting the site, I have never seen their humbug striped offspring. There was a pair of Tufted Duck out on the lake: I wonder if they will attempt to breed there? The cob Mute Swan continued with his aggressive behaviour towards everything else on Mallard Lake. Rosie told me that he has killed two of his own offspring from last year, drowning them. Clearly being psychopathic is not just a human trait!
With the catch having died away by 10:30, we decided to close the nets and take down. I don’t think we have ever had everything packed away and ready to leave in such a short time: very definitely “many hands make light work”, rather than “too many cooks spoil the broth”, big thanks to Laura and her family.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 