With the rain scheduled for Wednesday morning actually arriving, and lasting longer than forecast, I had no option but to move the session to Thursday. The forecast was for it to be dry but with some breeze from the south-west. Our nets are fairly well sheltered from a breeze from that direction. I was on site for 6:30 (couldn’t sleep) and got the first nets open by the time the rest of the crew arrived at 7:00, the agreed start time. I was joined for the session by Miranda, Rosie and Sarah. We had all of the nets open by 7:30 and Rosie stayed until she had to leave for work. She was starting out from the other side of Lower Moor Farm, so could stay a bit longer than usual.
It was quiet until 8:40, when we had our first decent round of the day. The following round, at 9:10 was also reasonable in number, but also had the star bird of the day. Prior to that and after it was very quiet. A lot of that is almost certainly down to the weather: at 9:50 the breeze became much stronger, would last for a minute and then drop for ten or more minutes before repeating. Come 11:00, the breeze became a very strong wind, with no respite, so we had no choice but to shut the nets, to ensure the safety of any birds that might get caught. We did catch one last bird in the final net set when Miranda went to close them down.
The reason for the silly title: today we caught our third Redstart in a month. We have caught three on autumn migration before, in 2020. Hopefully, with a few sessions to come at Blakehill Farm, we will be able to exceed that number this year. What is particularly nice about this year is that all three have been at different sites, including a first for the Whitworth building side of the Blakehill site, plus we have had an adult female in breeding condition, a juvenile and today we caught this:
First Year Male Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, freshly completed moult.
A few minutes after Miranda had processed it and released it we were joined by a friendly photographer. When I asked him what he was looking for he replied “male Redstart”! If only! He was actually looking for an adult male that had been seen on the site earlier in the week.
Our catch for the day was: Treecreeper (1); Blue Tit [4](1); Great Tit (1); Long-tailed Tit 1; Wren (2); Dunnock [1](1); Redstart [1]; Robin (1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird [3]; Blackcap [1]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 10 juveniles ringed from 5 species and 7 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 19 birds processed from 11 species.
Not the biggest catch but, given how the weather played out, plus only the second ever Redstart for the site, we were all pretty satisfied with our shortened morning’s work.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 