Taking a break from writing up my annual reports for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and Forestry England, I was pleased to see that the wind was forecast to drop to a level that would enable the team to get out. With the incoming summer migrants I wanted to go to a site where I knew there was a good chance of catching some, so I chose Lower Moor Farm. One thing about the wind: it was forecast to come from the North / North-West: it certainly did, it was a very cold wind. Rosie actually had to scrape ice off her windscreen! Mind, that was at 5:00 when leaving home to join us. We met at 6:00: Rosie, Teresa, Andy and myself. Rosie left for work before 9:00.
We set the CES nets plus a couple of additions to see how they fared:
Whilst we were setting up there was a lot of birdsong. In the shrubby area to the east of ride 1 there were at least three Willow Warbler singing, Chiffchaff were also making their presence felt but the absolute, overpowering, star of the morning symphony (cacophony?) were the Cetti’s Warblers. There were at least four singing males in our small area. To think that the first was only caught in 2015 (I checked with the ringer who had worked the site for the longest time before I took it over: he had never heard Cetti’s on site, let alone caught and ringed any) and now they have territories all along the main path and the bushes that line the stream that forms the border between Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Things started with a nice catch of nine birds: including two of the Willow Warblers adjacent to ride 1 plus a retrapped Cetti’s Warbler. The next two rounds were similar, but then the breeze started to get up and the nets became more visible and the catch dropped away. By 10:30 the nets were billowing and I decided to close the nets and take down.
The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1(1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1(1); Great Tit 1(4); Long-tailed Tit 1(1); Wren 1(1); Dunnock (1); Robin 1(1); Cetti’s Warbler (2); Blackcap 9(2); Chiffchaff 1(2); Willow Warbler 1(1); Goldcrest 1. Totals: 19 birds ringed from 11 species and 17 birds retrapped from 11 species, making 36 birds processed from 13 species.
My only disappointment: Miranda on a visit to the reserve last weekend had seen both Blackcap and Garden Warbler. She did say that the Blackcap was being particularly belligerent towards the Garden Warbler, perhaps they have driven them away? I do know that if I want to lure for Garden Warbler I don’t need to lure for Blackcap, as they will come to investigate whether that particular antagonist is in the vicinity. It is an interesting antipathy: whilst there is some habitat crossover, Blackcap prefer taller vegetation than Garden Warbler.
The Cetti’s are resident and, within that, incredibly site faithful: AAL0354 was ringed in May 2020 and has been recaptured at least once every year since in the same location. The other recapture, BPA 2585, was only ringed in May last year and this is the third time it has been recaptured since, again, in the same location.
Cetti’s Warbler, Cettia cetti, AAL0354 on the day it was ringed
There was some good birding this morning, as well as the trout, that Mallard Lake is stocked with by the fishing syndicate who lease the rights from the Trust, doing their leap and splash antics. Some of them are absolutely huge.
My favourite birds of the morning (outside of those we caught), were a pair of Gadwall: I cannot remember seeing Gadwall at Lower Moor Farm before. The Grey Herons have got young now: and there was a fabulous racket going on from them. We had a Sparrowhawk doing its wing flutter display flight overhead and, as I was leaving site, a male took off from the ground where the Willow Warblers had been singing, and flew up the path in front of me. Lovely views for a few hundred metres.
The Mute Swans were very active on the lake: with a lot of aggression and posturing. For once it was focused on other swans and not on the Canada Geese.
Mid-session a couple of Swallow made an appearance over Mallard Lake. They didn’t stay long. Rosie said that on Monday, when the weather was at its worst, there was a large mixed flock of hirundines hawking over that same lake. I am looking forward to, hopefully, ringing a few: it has been a while.
We were all away from site before midday after a pleasant, if cold, morning.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 