With the weather forecast for it to be dry with a light wind, I decided to have another go at Blakehill Farm, get a few Meadow Pipits and see what else is out there. I had agreed with one of the team that they would join me for the session: when they hadn’t arrived by 8:00 I assumed they were not coming and, for once, assume did not make an ass out of me. To spare their blushes, no names, because they simply forgot. After a bad night’s lack of sleep last night, had I known ahead of time I would have stayed in bed, but then I would have missed a very pleasant session, so just as well. Unfortunately, there is no mobile signal out on the plateau so neither of us got our messages to each other until 12:30, when I got home. O2 is rubbish but I am not sure that any other provider is any better!
I got to site at 7:30 and started setting up. When I realised that I was going to be working solo, I cut back on the number of nets I had planned, so nothing was set along the perimeter track this time.
As is, it seems, obligatory, the first bird out of the net was a Wren that flew in as I was opening the nets at 8:30. Thereafter, it was a busy morning for an old man (I will be 70 in just over two weeks time). I am pleased to say that I caught several Meadow Pipits in the Mipit triangle, but they weren’t fussy and were happy to be caught in net 4 as well.
The third round was highly productive with a good haul of Long-tailed Tits. They were the largest cohort in the catch, followed by Meadow Pipits and then Blue Tits. I am always somewhat surprised at how many Blue Tits we catch out on the plateau. I always think of them as birds of the woodlands and hedgerows but they regularly turn up in the sparse plateau bushes. Today they were caught in three groups of three, one group each in nets 3, 4 and 5, each on different net rounds, actually starting at 3 and ending at 5.
The list for the session was: Blue Tit 6(2); Great Tit 4; Long-tailed Tit 9(1); Wren 3(1); Meadow Pipit 9; Blackcap 1; Chiffchaff 1; Bullfinch 1; Reed Bunting 4. Totals: 38 birds ringed from 9 species and 4 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 42 birds processed from 9 species.
The Long-tailed Tits were in a single flock: eight of them in net 4 and one in net 3. The retrapped Long-tailed Tit was ringed three years ago, almost to the day, at Blakehill Farm on the Chelworth Industrial Estate side.
Net three did pretty well. The best catch was a stunning female Bullfinch: such fresh plumage, but with lots of brown fringing to the grey feathers in the lesser covert area. and above the alula. Another Blackcap, probably coming here to overwinter, as it weighed in at less than 18g, was also caught in ride 3. I usually have a gap between the end of September and the beginning of November with Blackcaps, which makes it much easier to decide whether they are coming or going.
I do have a bit of a strange sense of humour. Because I use the Breeding Bird Survey 2-digit codes when recording my data, instead of the 5-digit ringing scheme codes (why use five when two will do), it always amuses me that the bird we catch most of with a specific MP3 lure and specific net set is the Meadow Pipit which, when juveniles are recorded on my datasheets, are recorded as MP3. Just me is it? (For non-ringers: 3 is the BTO code for a bird that fledged this year.)
The wind was quite weird: it started a bit breezier than forecast, then dropped to dead calm for an hour, then it blew quite strongly, billowing out the nets, for half-an-hour, in which I didn’t catch any birds, then dropped again to dead calm, then it actually went to the forecast of low breeze with occasional gusts. Anyway, the catch dropped away rather quickly after 10:30. At 11:00 I did a completely empty round so, did another round at 11:15. As it too was empty I decided to shut the nets and take down at 11:30. Almost to order, as I started dismantle ride 2 it started to rain. It was light drizzle, but it persisted until I had finished taking down all of the nets.
Once I had finished taking down and packing away the ringing station, I was away from site by 12:15. That’s one benefit of not setting many nets. Mind, had we managed to get the perimeter nets open, with lures for Redwing and Starling, the catch might have been considerably larger.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 