One of us had an absolutely astonishing month, and it certainly wasn’t me! Jonny found a Swallow roost which yielded an excellent 182 birds ringed in four sessions. Not content with that excellent Swallow catch, he managed to include four Sand Martins and three House Martins during those sessions. If that wasn’t good enough, he had a couple of, frankly astonishing, catches at two of his farmland sites, with over 400 birds caught in just two sessions. One of those sessions was boosted by a phenomenal catch of 161 Goldfinches..
Actually, two of the team had a great month: my current longest serving trainee Ellie has been awarded her A-permit! It is thoroughly well-deserved, having put up with me as her trainer since January 2015.
Overall we caught fewer birds, but in fewer sessions, so the averages were all higher.
Missing from the list this year were Bullfinch, Garden Warbler, Nightjar, Tree Sparrow or Woodpigeon. Added to the list compared with last September were Linnet, Moorhen, Pied Wagtail, Sand Martin, Stock Dove, Stonechat and Whinchat.
The Moorhen is the only one ever ringed at Langford Lakes, according to the data in the online database.
The Sand Martins are the first caught since the group came into its current form at the beginning of 2013.
After a three year absence, I was pleased to catch four Whinchat back at Blakehill Farm. Three of them essentially rescued my ringing demonstration for the Swindon Wildlife Group on the 7th of the month. It turned a small catch, although with a reasonable variety of some interesting birds, into a session that the attendees definitely appreciated.
The Stonechat catch was interesting. Two were caught at Langford Lakes: the only other catch of Stonechat at Langford Lakes was one in October last year. Langford Lakes is certainly delivering now it is being surveyed more frequently.
The four Stonechat caught at Blakehill raise an interesting question. In February of this year we caught and ringed a male and a female at Blakehill Farm. The first that we have caught Robin Griffiths, who spends his time as volunteer warden at Ravensroost, and surveying all of the sites around the Cricklade / Braydon Forest area, noticed that there were two breeding pairs of Stonechat at Blakehill, despite there being virtually no standard Stonechat habitat at the site. He also noted that both pairs bred successfully. Although we cannot be sure if we have, it would be great if we have managed to ring some of this year’s local offspring (three were juveniles).
There were some rather large falls in the catch of some of the commoner species. Blackcap numbers were well down at 160 against 382 and Whitethroat were down at 7 against 25. Of resident species, Blackbird were at 8 against 18, Blue Tit were down to 85 from 165, Robin 42 from 65. As well as the Goldfinch catch, the Greenfinches also showed a good increase at 39 from 6.
So, a pretty good month all round. It is shaping up to be a really good year again:
For the third quarter in a row we have exceeded our previous best numbers.
Hopefully we will get some decent weather in October and keep the run going.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 