It turned out not to be the best day to get out. I moved our scheduled session for Blakehill to Saturday, replacing today’s session with a visit to Somerford Common. That was done because the Saturday forecast was for 2mph winds, gusting to 4mph, perfect for Blakehill, and the wind was destined to be 5 to 10mph, gusting to 25mph, coming from the south-west. Saturday’s forecast was nearly spot on. I was joined this morning by Sarah and we set our nets:
Unfortunately, the breeze got up at about 9:00, and from completely the opposite direction to that which was forecast. The combination of bright sunshine and the nets billowing in the breeze was not conducive to a big catch, and that is how it turned out. To be clear: they were not blowing so much that they were dangerous to the birds, just very visible.
We saw and heard a lot of birds this morning: a decent flock of Long-tailed Tits, several Nuthatch calling and drumming, Jay, Great Tit all flying around our area, but not one of those was caught this morning. The Nuthatch, in particular, spent the morning teasing us with constant calling in a back and forth across the site.
As Sarah doesn’t manage to get out too often, I scribed and left her to process all of the birds that we caught. It was a nice catch, given that it wasn’t very large. The breakdown was: Blue Tit [1]; Robin [2](1); Blackcap 1[6]; Willow Warbler [1]; Goldcrest [3]. Totals: 1 adult ringed, 13 juveniles ringed from 5 species and 1 bird retrapped (a juvenile Robin), making 15 birds processed from 5 species.
It is not that the catch wasn’t without interest. We do not catch a lot of Blackcaps on Somerford Common these days. In our first three years ringing at Somerford Common, 2013 to 2015 inclusive, we ringed 35, 19 and 33 respectively. Since then the numbers have significantly reduced. However, so far this year we have caught 15. Since 2016, that is our equal best total for any full year, with 2020, with plenty of time for us to add to that. The seven caught this morning is our second best single session total since 2016.
It was a notable session for Sarah. She got to ring her first ever Willow Warbler. She had previously processed a retrapped bird, but hadn’t ringed one:
The three Goldcrest that she ringed today were her third to fifth. They are also part of our biggest ever August catch of the species at Somerford Common, taking it to 10 in two sessions.
With the wind getting stronger, and the sun getting hotter, we closed the nets at 11:45 and took down. We would have been off site quite quickly but we got into a lovely conversation with a couple of women walking their dog. They were very interested in what we had been doing and were really positive about it. One turned out to be a vet working for APHA (the Animal & Plant Health Agency). We had a pretty good discussion on a number of topics, particularly the difficulty APHA have in monitoring pheasant shoots for HPAI, as they are termed domestic animals when penned, wildlife (bad joke) when released, unless they are then fed by the shoots, whereupon they become domestic livestock again. Suffice to say, we have a shared opinion. As a parting exchange, it turns out that we live one street apart in Purton. Small world syndrome.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 