I had originally planned to try out a new farmland site this morning but the weather forecast was for the breeze to be coming from the wrong direction, so I decided to change to Blakehill Farm where the net rides would be protected from wind from that direction. David and I arrived on site at 6:30 and unloaded the equipment. Unfortunately, as we started towards the first net ride the breeze got up – from the opposite direction to that forecast, potentially blowing the nets into the hedges, so I decided to head elsewhere to a woodland site. The nearest was Red Lodge. Ironically, that was the originally scheduled site for today until I decided I wanted to try somewhere new and more open. As we were leaving Blakehill a very obliging Merlin took off from a fence post to give nice views as it flew off.
We were late setting up and didn’t have the nets open until about 8:15. The first birds caught were three juvenile Blue Tits at 8:45. That was followed by a nice group of seven at 9:00, which included another Great Spotted Woodpecker. Unlike the recent catches, this was an adult female. It also happens to be our eleventh of the year ringed so far. To put that into perspective, we ringed a total of 10 in 2024 and only four in 2023. In fact, you have to go back to 2017 to find a better catch across the whole year! Funnily enough, that was 17 birds: be nice to end up on 25 this year!
Our next round that offered up any birds was at 9:45, with nine. This included another two Marsh Tits, both juveniles. After a barren month for the species in July, it was nice to get the catch back on track. These are our seventeenth and eighteenth of the year ringed, and our sixth and seventh juveniles.
Unfortunately, we then didn’t catch another bird for 90 minutes! What was happening though was that, in the opposite direction from where were we had set out nets, there were birds galore going backwards and forwards across the path. Some were hawking insects and, at one point, a Goshawk shot through the picture. We decided to do a last couple of rounds at 11:10 and 11:30. Those did produce another eight birds so, despite the gap, we did end up with a reasonable total after a very messy start.
All of the birds, except for the Great Spotted Woodpecker, were juveniles and there were no retrapped birds. The list was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 5; Great Tit 4; Marsh Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 5; Wren 1; Dunnock 1; Robin 3; Chiffchaff 2; Willow Warbler 1; Goldcrest 2. Totals: 27 birds ringed / processed from 11 species.
The highlight of the session was our first (at last) juvenile Willow Warbler of the year.
We closed the nets as we extracted the last birds of the session, processed our last five birds, and then took down and packed away: leaving site at just after 12:20.
PS I played Merlin a Whinchat mp3 and it identified it as a Skylark! Not quite as bad, I suppose, as playing it a female Cuckoo and having Merlin identify it as a Whimbrel!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 