I am having a busy week this week. Miranda was away and unable to make the usual Wednesday slot, so I suggested that we do a session at Webb’s Wood this morning. Rosie joined us to help set up, but had to disappear very early. The nearest she got to processing a bird was extracting our first Redwing of the morning, whilst Miranda and I were setting up our last net ride. We set the following nets:
I was hopeful that we would catch a few Redwing and set a suitable lure on ride 2. Straight away we started to get one or two in the nets, and it continued like that all morning, with a boost of nine at 11:00. 2024 seems to be a good year for Long-tailed Tits: our best year for five years with just under two and a half months to go. Today we caught two in the first round at 8:30 and then another 12 at 9:30, and then no more.
Things started to get very interesting at 11:30 just after we had decided to start taking down, as the wind was getting up and net ride 3 was just filling up with leaves: hundreds of them. We started extracting the leaves from the first of the three nets in ride 3. Once that was clear and closed, I started clearing the other two nets whilst Miranda went to check the other rides. We processed the birds she got from the round, finished clearing the second and third nets, whilst Miranda carried out another round. I then took down ride 3, and went to check ride 1 for birds whilst Miranda was busy with ride 2. I found this in ride 1:
Adult male Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cabaret
I love the Paddington hard stare. This is our first of the autumn. Miranda hadn’t seen it as she was busy extracting two Marsh Tits from ride 2. We left ride 2 until last and, whilst taking down ride 1, I looked across and there was a second sat in the 9m net of ride 2. Since Forestry England carried out a significant thinning of Webb’s Wood over winter of 2019 / 2020 it has become our best site for the species. It has taken that mantle over from Somerford Common.
It was also gratifying catching a decent number of Redwing. Last week at Somerford Common we caught seven out of many tens of them flying around. Today we didn’t see flocks flying around but we did manage to catch a total of 18 in this session.
The list from today was: Blue Tit 4; Great Tit 3; Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 12(2); Wren 1; Redwing 18; Goldcrest 3(2); Lesser Redpoll 2. Totals: 46 birds ringed from 9 species and 4 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 50 birds processed from 9 species.
Removing the leaves from the nets took us an age, but it is a necessary evil. We finally got away from site at 13:45. It was a thoroughly enjoyable session for the second day in a row.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 