I was joined by Miranda and Laura for today’s session, squeezed in between the wind and rain Monday and Tuesday and my wife and I heading off to Scotland for 10 days holiday. We met at 7:30 and set the usual nets. We didn’t rush: it was -2oC when we arrived on site and I don’t like opening the nets until the temperature is above zero. They were opened just after 8:30. We did our rounds every 15 minutes, to ensure that birds weren’t left in the nets for any length of time: it is warmer in a bag!
I hadn’t been out to top up the feeders since last week, so did so this morning whilst we were setting up the site. It didn’t seem to have discombobulated the local birds and we started catching straight away.
The surprise: we caught two Chiffchaff. We caught the first at just after 10:00 and a second just before we packed up at 11:30. We have never caught them in Somerford Common in December before. We had one at Somerford Common in November 2024, but that is it. As for the Braydon Forest: we have had only one other record in December: at Blakehill Farm on 2016.
As expected, we had a good haul of Blue Tits. Slightly unfortunate not to ring another Marsh Tit. We did manage to recapture four of them, but, frustratingly, we had seen an unringed bird in the area whilst setting up the nets. One thing that I have noted: Marsh Tits seem to be amongst the first birds at the feeders in the morning. Perhaps that is a strategy for avoiding the more numerous Blue and Great Tits. That said, I have never seen any aggressive behaviour between the Tit species at feeders. This morning we had three of them between 9:00 and 10:00 and the last in our last round at 11:30.
Another nice catch was Chaffinch: four ringed and one retrap. They have always been regular around the feeders at Somerford Common in December, but last year we only caught the one, so this is a nice return to form.
The list for the morning was: Nuthatch 1; Blue Tit 10(7); Great Tit 2(4); Coal Tit 3(3); Marsh Tit (4); Dunnock (1); Robin 1; Chiffchaff 2; Chaffinch 4(1). Totals: 23 birds ringed from 7 species and 20 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 43 birds processed from 9 species.
We had agreed that 4 hours in the cold was plenty, so we packed away at 11:30 and were off site by 12:15.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 