Like, I suspect, every bird ringer in the country, this last week has been an absolute no-go for any ringing activity. So, with the forecast set to be a balmy 5oC today, I arranged to go ringing at Ravensroost Wood this morning. I chose Ravensroost because, like Somerford Common, I have been providing supplementary feeding for the last month or so, and actually stepped it up because of this cold weather. I reasoned that these birds would be in better condition than those at sites I haven’t yet managed to set up feeding stations at.
I was joined by David, Laura and Adam at 8:00 and we were met by the Robin who seems to have made the carpark his territory. I had given him a handful of seed when I went and topped up the feeders on Thursday. We set the following nets:
Nice to see that Ordnance Survey have updated the aerial map of the Braydon Forest area: I shall renew my OS Maps subscription in March!
We set up ride 4 first, followed by ride 1, so that we were unlikely to catch birds until we were good and ready. The temperature was a lot warmer than it has been, but it was still cold, and I didn’t want birds cooling in the nets by the feeding station, whilst we were setting up the longer net rides. It was the right decision: we started with a couple of Marsh Tits hitting net 2 before we had finished setting them up. An excellent start to the session: our first new Marsh Tit for 2025 and one retrap, that was ringed as a juvenile at Ravensroost in November 2024.
To ensure the wellbeing of the birds, we were checking the nets every 15 minutes. I did tell the team that if any of the birds were showing signs of cold stress we would pack up straight away.
Unfortunately, ride 4 was a bit of a waste of time: it produced a single retrapped Wren. The catch wasn’t huge but it was relatively interesting. Predictably, with the feeding station in place, the catch was Blue and Great Tit heavy. Even so, I was surprised that, of the 12 Blue Tits caught, only two were retrapped birds: 10 to be ringed.
However, the biggest surprise of the session came at 9:45, when we caught our second Jay of the year! Two sessions, two Jays. We have never caught them in consecutive session before. This was David’s first experience of ringing a Jay, and he got to feel the pain. Not quite as much as Laura did in the previous session, but enough to make sure he is careful about how he will handle them n future.
Then, at 10:45, we caught our first Great Spotted Woodpecker of the year: also a nice catch.
The catch for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Jay 1; Blue Tit 10(2); Great Tit 2(3); Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 1(1); Wren (1); Robin (3); Blackbird 1. Totals: 17 birds ringed from 7 species and 10 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 37 birds processed from 9 species.
There was a lot of footfall through the wood this morning: no doubt lots of people making the most of the change in the weather. We had some lovely chats with people interested in what we were doing and, on the whole, the interactions were positive.
Unfortunately, those with dog owners were less so. It seemed that most of the dog walkers had forgotten their poo bags, and there was dog mess all over the place, and muggins managed to tread in it, which was not pleasant. To be fair, only two of them had their dogs off the lead, as required by the Wildlife Trust, and the one who actually had a poo bag refused to put his dog on a lead when politely asked to do so. Responsible dog owners? Responsible for ignoring the requests of the landowner, disturbing the wildlife that the area is actually intended for, and spreading poo!
Moan over! With the catch having fallen away, and having been out in the cold for just under 4 hours, we decided to pack away just before midday. With only a few nets set, it didn’t take long to get packed away and we were off-site by 12:45. We were a little delayed at the main gate whilst I, once again, fed some seed to the Robin and watched him pick out his preferred seed types. A nice little session. The only disappointments were the compete lack of any finches, nor any Goldcrests or Long-tailed Tits. I do hope that they have just moved into local gardens.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 