Driving to site this morning I turned onto Stoppers Hill, to be met with a “Road Ahead Closed” sign. I could see some flashing yellow lights further down the road, but before our parking site. I drove down until I came to the source of the lights: a contractor’s pickup truck and several traffic cones spread across the road. Fortunately, one of the workforce was manning the truck. I explained where I was heading and how many cars would be coming through. He confirmed that we would not be encroaching on the work that was scheduled (tarmacking the top end of Stoppers Hill, down to about 100m away from where we park up) and he showed that he was a decent human being, and not a jobsworth, and let me, and the rest of the team, through. He was responsible for one of the more entertaining events of the morning: the signs told cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through the roadworks. Clearly one of the (hundreds of) local cycling clubs had planned their route and weren’t prepared to modify it in the face of the roadworks. So, instead, we had the amusing sight of all of those people, of varying shapes, sizes and ages, in Lycra pushing their cycles down the road. It reminded me very firmly of why I will never, ever wear Lycra. However, the best bit was when a couple of their more entitled members thought they would hop on their bikes once they were past the barrier. He was on it like a shot, and they quickly dismounted again!
My last visit to Somerford Common was on the 8th November. It was a good session: 48 birds processed from 12 species, 31 birds ringed and 17 retraps: highlights being a Lesser Redpoll and a nice flock of Long-tailed Tits. That was without the attraction of a feeding station. With the weather having been so mild throughout October and the start of November, I hadn’t done my usual deployment. The hard weather that we have had on and off in the last couple of weeks has meant that I have now started to set them up. I put up the feeders at Somerford Common on Wednesday and rather anticipated an overall increase driven by an upsurge in Blue Tit and Great Tit numbers. I use a non-wheat seed mix (it seems to me that most woodland songbirds don’t like wheat and so they throw it on the ground, and I have no wish to feed the escapee pheasants from the local shoots, nor encourage any rats) plus the obligatory peanuts.
I was joined by Rosie, David, Laura, Adam, Daniel and, coming for her first experience of bird ringing, Emma. We met at 7:30 and set the usual nets and started catching pretty well straight away. For once, Rosie could stay until 9:30 and got to ring a decent number of birds. Her final bird of the morning was a Great Spotted Woodpecker. This has been a dreadful few months for us for this species. We caught our last one before this on the 16th March on the opposite side of Somerford Common. It is a surprise because in January we had actually caught and ringed six of them, then one each in February and March, and then none for eight months!
The expected upsurge in Blue and Great Tits did happen, but the overall increase in numbers didn’t. Back on the eighth we ringed one and retrapped two Blue Tits and ringed three and retrapped three Great Tits. Today we caught and ringed nine Blue Tits and eight Great Tits and we retrapped twelve Blue Tits and six Great Tits. That is not to say that it wasn’t a good session. There were multiple highlights. As well as the aforementioned Great Spotted Woodpecker we ringed our 25th Nuthatch of the year. We caught and ringed only our third November Braydon Forest Chiffchaff: previous ones were in Red Lodge in 2013 and Ravensroost Wood in 2020. The absolute highlight, though, was this beauty:
Jay, Garrulus glandarius
This was our third of the year and Laura’s first opportunity to process one. Suffice to say, she knows the importance of controlling the birds feet (she gave it a stick to hold) and avoiding its beak! (Because she watched me make a right pig’s ear of the last one we caught, as I had forgotten all of the golden rules on handling Jays, as I was well out of practice.)
The total catch was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Nuthatch 1; Jay 1; Blue Tit 9(12); Great Tit 8(6); Marsh Tit (3); Robin (1); Chiffchaff 1; Goldcrest 2(1). Totals: 23 birds ringed from 7 species and 23 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 46 birds processed from 9 species. The key difference between the two catches were the increase in Blue and Great Tits and the total absence of Long-tailed Tits. That was quite a surprise: every single woodland session I have carried out since the middle of September has had Long-tailed Tits in the catch.
The catch was regular, with small numbers across each round so it really was a very relaxed and enjoyable session. Laura and her boys had to leave at 11:30. David, his dad, Trevor, Emma and I started taking down at 11:45, with one last Goldcrest being caught and processed midway through our takedown. We were all packed away and off-site by 12:30.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 