A pretty typical March: catch sizes have fallen off as the winter visitors have mainly departed, summer visitors have just started arriving and the resident species feeding flocks have largely dispersed as they get territorial and are seeking a mate! We did get in a good number of sessions as the weather improved significantly on February. I even managed to do three sessions in walking, not Wellington, boots!
In keeping with the latest BTO guidance, I will be lumping Redpoll together for all future reports. The only three Redpoll we caught this month were all at Lower Moor Farm: the latest I have ever caught them at that site. Last year’s were all in the same place: but in Coulston, south-west of Devizes.
Added to the list, compared with last year, are Bullfinch, Green Woodpecker, Jay and Redwing. Missing from the list are Blackcap, Firecrest, Grey Wagtail, Mute Swan, Siskin and Stock Dove.
The Bullfinches were all caught at Lower Moor Farm: two in the wildlife refuge and one in the garden of the farmhouse. The Green Woodpeckers were caught at Lower Moor Farm and Andy’s new site just outside Warminster. Ours at Lower Moor Farm was absolutely covered in ant carapaces. It had clearly been rolling in them: I have never seen anything like it before. Unfortunately, it, along with the Lesser Redpoll, were all caught just after the Swindon Adult Wellbeing Group had departed to their next activity!
The Redwing were a bit of a surprise, given how few my team have caught up north this winter. One in a small catch at Blakehill Farm, the other three in the Firs. With the exception of winter 2014 / 15, I catch very few Redwing in the Firs. Apart from one in 2014, I have not caught them there in March. In fact, with that exception, I have never caught them in Q1 of any other year in the Firs.
Of the birds missing this year, Firecrest and Mute Swan are not really a surprise omission, given that we have caught only ringed one and retrapped one Mute Swan and, given we have caught and ringed 11 Firecrest, in over 12 years, it would have been a surprise if we had.
Missing Blackcap is more of a surprise, but we don’t catch a lot of them in March. Presumably the over-wintering birds from Central Europe have headed back to their breeding grounds and our summer visitors are still in north Africa / southern Spain.
Siskin are more of a surprise: March is usually one of our better months for the species. In the north they are migrants, but they are resident in the Warminster area and are usually nailed on from Andy’s activities. April is also another good month for the species so, hopefully, we will catch a few to make up for March’s shortfall. One of Andy’s other Warminster sites is also a fairly regular catch site for Grey Wagtail, and caught the three from March 2024, but none this year.
Stock Dove are usually caught in Barn Owl boxes during the breeding season. Only four of the 28 ringed, including this one, have been caught in mist nets: two of them in March.
I think the most surprising catches this month were Nuthatch and Treecreeper. Of the Nuthatches, eight were ringed in the Braydon Forest and two ringed in one of Andy’s Warminster sites, seven retrapped in the Braydon Forest, one in Green Lane Wood and the other at the Warminster site. It is our largest ever monthly catch, second largest number ringed in a month.
When it comes to Treecreepers, we had our best ever March catch of them: the previous best was 7. The only better catch was in August 2016: i.e. towards the end of the breeding season. 11 of those Treecreepers were new birds. The five retraps were four at Lower Moor Farm and one at Biss Wood.
So more birds caught but from more sessions and fewer species compared to last March.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 