A pretty good month, despite the rain. We managed to get out a lot more often this March than last, but the catches were considerably smaller overall. The main difference was in the number of retrapped birds: averaging at 9.2 per session this year and 14.4 last. However, we did catch seven more species than last March.
Added to the catch this March were: Cetti’s Warbler, Firecrest, Grey Wagtail, Kingfisher, Meadow Pipit, Mute Swan, Siskin and Yellowhammer. Missing from last year’s catch was Bullfinch.
Highlights for the month were: Andy had a particularly good month with a Firecrest and three Grey Wagtails on the same day at one of his sites near Warminster. Jonny had a close encounter with a Mute Swan, ringed in July 2015 and recaptured, eight and a half years later, a whole 4km from where it was ringed, at Langford Lakes. Jonny started at another new farmland site, south of Sherston, and had an excellent catch of 55 birds, which included 12 of the Linnets and all 17 of the Yellowhammers. It looks like another cracking site.
Whilst my garden did play host to a couple of Siskin it has just been too windy to set nets. That did not apply to Andy, with 16 of them being caught in his back garden. Ian and Ellie also each had singleton back garden catches and Jonny caught another at Langford Lakes. Ian also had the pleasure of the entirety of the Lesser Redpoll catch in his back garden.
My highlights for the month, as blogged about on Saturday, were the first Willow Warblers ever caught in March at Lower Moor Farm and the second earliest captures of Blackcap at that site (the earliest was on the 23rd March 2019).
Apart from the individual month’s activity: Q1 2024 has been quite remarkable, despite what has seemed to be the wettest, windiest Q1 I can remember:
In absolute numbers it is far and away our best Q1 since the group came into its current structure. The foundation was clearly that remarkable January. However, the average is just below the overall average. When I graph the averages the trend line (the blue dotted line) is dead flat at 35 birds per session:
So our increased efforts have produced increased numbers over the years, but the catches are still evened out over that time.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 