With the weather forecast to be dry but breezy, I decided to head to what is normally my most reliably wind-proof site, Ravensroost Wood. I was joined by Ellie and David plus, before heading off to work with the children in the Wildlife Trust’s Watch Group, Rosie and her ne trainee, Ellie. We set our normal nets: 3 x 18m nets to the left of the main path and 5 x 18m + 1 x 9m nets to the right of the main path. Even before we had the nets open, the nets to the right of the path caught a Wren and a Chiffchaff! Unfortunately, in terms of the rest of the session, they were the only birds that counted from that ride. A couple of our other catches did decide to fly straight back into those nets once processed. However, the wind got very fierce, very quickly and that ride was particularly affected, so we had to shut the nets to ensure that no injury befell any of the birds. It was somewhat frustrating as that ride was alive with birdsong.
The nets to the left of the main track were not affected in the same way and it was safe to leave them open. We didn’t have a spectacular catch, on a par with recent sessions in this wood, but what was unusual about it was that, after we had so many newly fledged birds from a good number of species in the Firs on Wednesday, the only young bird we caught was a juvenile Robin. It was a varied, if small, catch. Rosie got to ring a few birds before heading of to work with her Ellie, which made a nice change for her.
The first two birds out of the nets, once fully opened, were a pair of Bullfinch. In the same net, close together, almost certainly a pair, confirmed by the fact that we held them back to be released together after processing (a few seconds, as they were processed simultaneously) and they flew off in the same direction. The female flew straight back into one of the nets, and the male stayed close by waiting for her until she was released (released immediately, I might add).
We weren’t exactly rushed off our feet, so we had lots of time to look at other things. I one thing we did see was that there were plenty of birds flying around both net ride areas. Probably more on the side where we had to shut the nets. There were some very attractive insects around, but no butterflies! There was this rather lovely longhorn moth:
Nemophora degeerella (photo courtesy of Rosie Wilson)
The antennae are astonishingly long – proportionately the longest, as a percentage of body length, in the UK’s moth fauna.
The list for the day was: Blue Tit 1(2); Wren (1); Dunnock 1; Robin 2(1); Blackbird 1(1); Blackcap 3(2); Chiffchaff 1; Chaffinch 1; Bullfinch 2. Totals: 12 birds ringed from 8 species and 7 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 19 birds processed from 9 species.
As we had closed the nets on the right-hand side, we could take them down whilst still monitoring the open nets. We closed the final nets at 11:30 and were off-site by before midday. Not a great session but good company, good chat and some nice birds.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 