A really nice session today: thoroughly enjoyable. I am not sure that I give my team enough credit in my blog pieces: I am very lucky with the people that I have the privilege to train. Apart from being massively interested in our birdlife and the importance of the ringing scheme, willing learners and committed helpers, they are all thoroughly nice people, with whom it is a pleasure to spend time.
That’s enough of that, down to business! I was joined this morning by Laura and Ellie at 6:00 for a session at Ravensroost Meadows and we set the following nets:
We started with a Wren that got into the nets before they had been opened. They are bad enough to extract when the nets are fully open but this one crawled through three pockets of the net, got the nets up around both thighs and angel-winged itself on both wings: just what you want for your first extraction of the morning after no coffee to wake you up and, having set Laura and Ellie other tasks I had to get it out. Suffice to say, I did, safely and with only a minimum of curses.
Anyway, it was an interesting morning for a number of reasons. It wasn’t the busiest of mornings, with some quite long gaps between catches, but there was plenty to appreciate. Our second round produced two of these:
Of course, those of us who are lucky enough to catch Bullfinch regularly will recognise this pose as far more typical:
He might look ferocious but they are one of the few birds that are more than happy to sit on your outstretched hand until you decide it is time for them to move on. Anyway, these were our first juvenile Bullfinches of the year.
A bit later on, at 10:30, we caught our second first juvenile of the year:
In addition to our catching these first juveniles of the year, we also caught two adult Lesser Whitethroat: a male and female in full breeding condition, which were also my teams first of this species for the year.
The total list for the session was: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit 1[3]; Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1; Robin [4]; Song Thrush [3]; Blackcap[1]; Whitethroat 2; Lesser Whitethroat 2; Chiffchaff 1[7]; Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 8 adults ringed from 6 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 2 retraps from 2 species, making 31 birds processed from 11 species.
Given how the weather has been these last couple of weeks, we were lucky that the sun stayed behind cloud pretty much for the whole morning, coming out and into full force just after 11:30, just before we started to take down and pack up at midday.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 