David, Laura, Adam and I met up at the Whitworth Building, on the western side of Blakehill Farm, this morning at 6:30 (Bjork wasn’t available!). There was a light breeze forecast, coming from the South or South South West over the course of the morning, picking up as midday approached. We set the following nets:
Our ringing station was adjacent to the Whitworth Building: where the white car can be seen on the photo. I set the two-shelf nets along the hedgerow where we caught the Meadow Pipits last time on site. Unfortunately, they caught absolutely nothing today.
We set the main nets in reverse order to the way I have numbered them on the diagram. Net 6 is always a bit of a disappointment, but I keep hoping, and this morning, before we had even finished tying off the net, a Chiffchaff flew in: our first bird of the morning. However, after that it did catch two more birds, but they were same day retraps and we don’t process a bird more than once in a session.
Unfortunately, as the title says, it was a very quiet session. Quite remarkably: not one Blue or Great Tit. I cannot remember the last time that happened here. The key issue was the wind. Because the breeze was forecast to come from behind the bushes, we set them building side of the bushes (I didn’t fancy extracting all those nets from what are, primarily, bramble bushes): the breeze got up, much higher than was forecast, quite quickly. Whilst the nets did not billow to the point where the pockets were blowing out, or that it became dangerous for the birds, they were too obvious and easy for the birds to avoid. Had I known it would be like that I would have chosen a woodland site.
It was a very pleasant session despite the lack of birds, and we had lots of time to chat, especially after 9:00 when Laura’s partner Mark and their other son, Daniel, arrived: the pair having been to see the Zutons in Bristol Friday night and still buzzing about it: Daniel sporting his tour T-shirt. Their contribution in helping pack stuff away at the end was much appreciated.
Back to the birds: we had mainly Chiffchaff, with Wren and Long-tailed Tit being the next most frequent. In fact, all of the birds caught, until we caught three Blackcap at 9:55, were birds that took the smallest, AA rings. Two B-ring Dunnocks were the only other ring sizes needed.
Our bird of the morning was our first Whitethroat of the year: the earliest that I have ever caught by 10 days.
The list for the session was: Long-tailed Tit 2(2); Wren 1(3); Dunnock 2; Blackcap 3; Whitethroat (1); Chiffchaff 5. Totals: 13 birds ringed from 5 species and 6 bird retrapped from 3 species, making 19 birds processed from 6 species.
It was a pretty good morning for birding as well. A Red Kite spent a long time following a Jackdaw, occasionally swooping at it, always staying above and just behind it. I am pretty sure it was trying to drive the Jackdaw into a position where it could seize it. We had another Red Kite circling over the plateau later in the morning. Apart from that, we were treated to Curlew displaying and making their bubbling call all morning. At one point a pair of them flew from Blakehill towards Purton / Red Lodge: both places where they are regularly seen foraging for food in the fields. The bushes were alive with bird song: mainly Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. If the breeze had been less strong we might have had a much better catch. Net ride 2, in particular: I stood and watched birds flitting in and out of that hedgerow for 5 minutes without any of them hitting the net. The net was just too obvious.
We packed up at 11:15: all of the nets were empty as we were closing up. The team is getting very efficient and we were packed away and leaving site by midday. On my way out of the site I stopped to chat with one of the team at the Oak & Furrows centre, who was entering the site as I was leaving. She was on her way to pick up some more supplies as she is currently foster mother to a number of leverets! Oak & Furrows has had an almost complete turnover of staff and volunteers in the last 6 months, so it was nice to be told that they would still like my help going forward: just as well, having purchased a one metre rule for measuring Red Kite and Buzzard wings!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 