With everybody else unavailable and, despite the fact that she would have to leave by 10:40 to go to work, Ellie offered to join me for as much of the session as she could. I was very grateful as, even though we didn’t set all of the nets we would with a team out, we had a very good catch. These are the nets we set:
The first couple of rounds produced about 20 birds, but the next round was over double that. By the time we had extracted them all it was time for Ellie to go off to get ready for work, so she didn’t get to ring many birds. Her help was hugely appreciated, as she came all the way from Cheltenham to do so. As I have said before, I am extremely lucky with who I have in my team.
I decided to shut and loosely furl the nets after Ellie left: I reckoned I had enough to keep me going for the rest of the morning. In fact, I decided to leave ride 3 open as it had not caught much, just three Goldcrest. I would check it every 20 minutes whilst processing the other birds (to give me a break from being pecked to bits by Blue Tits). That produced another Goldcrest at 11:00, and, a fine finale, as I was taking the nets in, I took ride 3 last and, as ever, it was at the furthest end of the last net!
Am I getting boring about Marsh Tits yet? Number 37 for the Braydon Forest this year came in the second round, which I gave to Ellie to process. I am wondering about not continuing my colour-ringing project next year: I get so few resighting reports and these little pieces of coloured plastic are not cheap. It costs me £1.00 per bird to ring and colour ring each Marsh Tit. With a 6% increase in the price of metal rings this year that money might be better spent on them.
The list from the session was: Blue Tit 32(1); Great Tit 9(2); Coal Tit 3(2); Marsh Tit 1(3); Robin 3; Goldcrest 5; Chaffinch 1. 54 birds ringed from 7 species and 8 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 62 birds processed from 7 species.
One nice interlude, as I was getting down to the last few birds I noticed an elderly couple, a young lad and a Chihuahua approaching up the central glade. I held a couple back just in case they were interested and took a Great Tit out of the bag as they came up alongside. They asked what I was doing and I explained about bird ringing to them. I finished processing the bird and asked the young lad (Ralph) if he would like to be shown how to safely hold and release a bird. Of course he did! He was a natural. I then processed a Robin and let him do the same again. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it looks as though I might get a new trainee: good job I have the appropriate young person’s training licence and a current Advanced DBS certificate.
I started taking down and packing away at 12:30 but, with a few stops for coffee (and to rest an aching back – getting old is no fun) and left site just after 14:00. Tiring but somewhat satisfying. What would have made it totally satisfying would have been a couple of Redwing, Siskin and Redpoll but they are definitely scarce so far this autumn.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 