Not a spelling mistake: not what I had planned for this morning. To the context, this morning was a ringing demonstration for the Malmesbury & District Natural History Society. We had the choice of Ravensroost Wood or Blakehill Farm. Our last visit to Blakehill was 19 days ago, with 32 birds from 11 species. That included a nice mix of autumn migrants and the one species we missed out on was Meadow Pipit. We saw that they were there but they avoided the Mipit triangle. I wondered if the issue was that the lure wasn’t loud enough. Perhaps with a better lure we might catch a decent number, so that’s what we decided to go for. With the weather forecast for it not to be too windy, after discussion with the organisers, we decided to go for Blakehill Farm. That had always been their preference.
I was joined at 6:30 by Miranda, Ellie and Adam and we set the same nets that we have done in the last few sessions. As I went out to set up the various lures at the nets I extracted our first bird of the morning: a juvenile Whitethroat. The first group of visitors arrived at 7:30, in time to see the Whitethroat. Unfortunately, the catch was slow and very light. The Whitethroat was followed by our first Chiffchaff of the session and our first Meadow Pipit of the autumn:
You can identify that it is a juvenile from the pale fringing with the dark spike on the median coverts. We also had our first Reed Bunting of the autumn. Despite the name, they are very much a farmland bird outside of the breeding season. September and October are our best months for catching them.
For group one, we did catch another three Chiffchaff. Despite my disappointment at such a small catch for the attendees, they were very happy. In particular the young lad who got to hold and release the Whitethroat, and the two older participants who got to release the Reed Bunting and the Meadow Pipit. I was also asked by two of the attendees from the first group about training to become ringers! One of them was actually once a C-permit holder, but that was decades ago.
Group two arrived for 9:30. They, unfortunately, got to see just three birds processed: Chiffchaff, Wren and Meadow Pipit number two. We did recapture the original Whitethroat ringed first thing this morning, which we could show to them before letting it fly off again.
As for the Meadow Pipits, they responded extremely well to the lure. Unfortunately, apart from the two that we ringed, we must have seen at least 50 of them: mainly sitting on the tops of the net poles or the top strand of the nets or hopping around the path: anything but getting into the nets.
We all agreed at 11:00 that, as the wind was beginning to get up, we were unlikely to catch any more birds, so we closed up and took down. The members of group two were every bit as happy as those of group one, particularly the young lad who got to release Meadow Pipit two! His mum was pretty happy as well. Ironically, as we were closing the nets, I found another Chiffchaff in one of them.
The concern is that, although the attendees did enjoy themselves, I have another demonstration scheduled there for the 5th October, for the Swindon Wildlife Group. I think I might have to seed the area with some dried mealworms over the next couple of weeks and keep my fingers crossed.
The list for the morning was: Wren (1); Meadow Pipit 2; Whitethroat 1; Chiffchaff 5; Reed Bunting 1. Totals: 9 birds ringed from 4 species and 1 bird retrapped, making 10 birds processed from 5 species. All of the birds, including the retrapped Wren, were juveniles.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 