Having informed Forestry England that access to Webb’s Wood was blocked by a fallen tree, I rather expected that they would have removed it. Turning up on Friday morning I found that the tree had been cut out across the pathway. I assumed it was their action, but it was very tight and nothing else had been cleared away. Anyway, chatting to one of the regular dog walkers later in the morning, it turns out that it was cut by a local. He had turned up for a walk and for his young daughter to ride her bike through the wood. Finding the tree down he returned to his car and took out a chainsaw, as you do, to remove it! Who drives around with a chainsaw in the back of their car? Apparently, he had absolutely no protective equipment! Not my idea of fun.
With the weather earlier in the week being dreadful, and the forecast for the weekend being worse, and Thursday I had other appointments, so Friday looked like the only day available for a session. That said: it was going to be wet and windy from midday, so we were on a tight schedule. David and I met at 7:45. As it was just the two of us we only set the following nets:
Ride 3 was a nightmare or, to be more precise, a quagmire. At one point it did claim David’s wellies, which ended up with quite a lot of mud everywhere!
I don’t have a feeding station set up in Webb’s Wood at the moment, as the feeders were stolen last year. It was the first time in 12 years of feeding this site that it has happened, but I have decided to put in a bird table instead. The table has a huge great stake that will go about one metre into the ground, and the table area has a mesh cage large enough to let in most bird species attracted to seed mix, and small enough to keep out squirrels. The thought of some tea-leaf staggering down the track with that on their shoulder, trying to pretend that what they are doing is a normal activity, I find amusing. I will put up a cheap mesh peanut feeder for the titmice, Nuthatches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers. I just have to get round to doing it!
We put on a variety of lures in the hope of attracting in a range of over-wintering species. Before we put on the lures the only bird we had seen and heard was a peripatetic Raven, flying back and forth and issuing its regular croak. After we put the lures on we still didn’t hear any birds and it took a long time before we actually caught any birds: two retrapped Long-tailed Tits at 9:15. That was it until 10:15 when we caught a nice flock of more Long-tailed Tits and a Blue Tit. Thereafter we were just taking one or two birds out at a time.
By 11:00 the wind had started getting up and rides 1 and 2 became untenable, so we had to shut them: which was unfortunate, because ride 3 had only produced a retrapped Goldcrest. After we shut the others, ride 3 did produce another bird we could process: a retrapped Great Spotted Woodpecker. It did catch two same day retraps, which I just extracted and released. That was it for the session and left us with the following list: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Blue Tit 4; Long-tailed Tit 10(3); Robin (1); Goldcrest (1). Totals: 14 birds ringed from 2 species and 6 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 20 birds processed from 5 species.
We were cleared away and leaving site by midday. I stopped at the entry gate to remove my warning signs and lock the site access gate back in place. Got back into the car and drove off, and then that smell hit me: the dog poo whiff! Why is it that every dog owner is apparently a responsible dog owner, and they all clean up after their dogs, but each of our Forestry England sites, despite their very clear signage for owners to clean up after their dogs, are plastered with dog poo? If you are lucky it is there in a plastic bag but mostly it is just on the side of the track: hidden under leaves at this time of year, ready to trap the unwary! A quick hose down of the car mats (thankfully rubber, not fabric) and my shoes when I got home fixed it – but I had to drive home with that stench in my nostrils! Not happy!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 