I was joined for the morning by David, Laura and Adam at 7:30 and we set the following nets:
This is the first time I have set the nets in this part of the wood since the 1st June. We had become fairly jaundiced at how low the catches were in the spring after removal of the feeding station. As a result, the rides had become horribly overgrown. Having steeled myself for another crack at the site, I went over on Friday morning with my brush cutter, secateurs and slashers (like hooked machetes) and spent two hours clearing and cutting and opening up the rides, ready for this morning. I set Adam to do some more tidying with the secateurs, whilst the rest of us set the nets this morning. No matter how much you might strip back bramble and dog rose, how carefully you remove the cuttings from the pathway, when you come to set the nets there are always overlooked pieces ready to extract revenge!
I set multiple lures for a range of over-wintering and resident species, only three of which succeeded. However, once again we did start catching even before the nets were open. Unusually, the bird in the unopened nets was a Dunnock. It is usually Wren, Robin or Blackbird in that decreasing order of frequency.
It was a funny morning, we had small numbers in most rounds, and the odd empty round, but it didn’t feel like a poor session. We ended up with the following catch: Nuthatch 1(1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 2(1); Great Tit 2(2); Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 4(1); Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1; Robin 2(2); Goldcrest 6(2). Totals: 22 birds ringed from 11 species and 11 birds retrapped from 8 species, making 33 birds processed from 11 species.
The lures that worked were, primarily, the Goldcrest, followed by the Long-tailed Tits and, finally, the Nuthatches. Nuthatch are making a lot of noise at the moment. The only noisier things in the woods currently are the Jays, with their raucous shouting as they chase each other around and around. I don’t know if it is pair-bonding (Jay) or territory setting (Nuthatch), comments welcome!
It was nice to catch and ring another new Marsh Tit. We are well on our way to our standard 50+ individuals per annum. Speaking of which, this is turning into a very good year for Long-tailed Tits in the Braydon Forest. With six weeks before the end of the year, we are likely to either get very close to, or even exceed, our best ever year for ringing them in the Forest.
I prefer to use the number of individuals to numbers retrapped for comparisons, as the same bird can be retrapped several times in the same year, distorting the picture of the population.
I doubt we will reach the total of ringed and retrapped from 2015 and probably not the number of individuals, but I hope it will be close. For some reason the numbers ringed decreased dramatically in 2016, recovering briefly in 2019, and then declining again. Hopefully this up and down trend will remain resolutely upwards in the coming years. As this graph shows, there seems to be a 4 to 5 year spike in their numbers, followed by an intermediate decline:
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years.
Our oldest Long-tailed Tit was ringed on the 20th July 2013 and retrapped for the second time on the 30th October 2019: 6 years and 3 months or so. Not bad for a bird that the BTO BirdFacts has as having a typical lifespan of 2 years. Mind, the oldest known from ringing is 8 years and 11 months.
We started packing away at 12:15, with Trevor (David’s dad) helping, it was all done pretty quickly and we were off site before 13:00. The feeders will be going up in the next week or two and we will see what impact that has on our catches.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 