I went out to top up the bird feeders yesterday, having already done so on Monday, but with how the weather has turned in the last week, supplementary feeding has never been more important so far this winter. At 11:30 yesterday the back roads were treacherous: I had to remind myself of the skills I learnt when I learned to drive up in Northumberland! Even though, I had one nasty snaking experience on the way out and, on the way back, the car decided to go straight on at two junctions, despite my only driving at 20mph! So I emailed the team and suggested that they should seriously consider not coming this morning if they were at all concerned about driving in freezing conditions, especially as the forecasts were all predicting -6oC first thing. Fortunately, whilst it was cold, it was -1oC when we arrived at 7:30 but, by the time the nets were open at 8:30, it was above freezing and actually a higher temperature than last Wednesday’s session.
So the nutters in the team, besides myself, are Laura (and Adam) and Pete. We set the same nets as last time we visited this site. The birds started coming in straight away, and how they came in! We were extremely busy all morning, to the point that we decided to empty and shut the nets at 11:00: and took out another 35 birds.
As before, the catch was Blue Tit heavy, but the most pleasing titmouse capture was Coal Tit. We had our second largest haul ever, and the largest since 19th January 2018! However, that catch of 26 birds comprised nine ringed and 17 retraps. Our catch today, 16 ringed and just three retraps, is the biggest catch of unringed Coal Tits we have had. The previous best was 12 ringed in 2013 on the 30th November 2019.
One other titmouse bonus:
Alongside our first ringed Marsh Tit in our first session of the year, we retrapped four others! Three ringed early last year and one in 2024.
Our third Redwing of the winter duly arrived early on, but no others hit the nets. The list for the session was: Blue Tit 51(8); Great Tit 10(5); Coal Tit 16(3); Marsh Tit 1(4); Long-tailed Tit 5; Robin 3(2); Redwing 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 88 birds ringed from 8 species and 22 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 110 birds processed from 8 species. This is our biggest ever catch in January at any of our Braydon Forest sites, a total of 53 Braydon Forest January ringing sessions!
Contrary to the forecasts, at no point did the temperature drop below freezing. At about 11:15 the sun came out and things warmed up quite nicely. About 11:45 the forecast gusts of wind arrived and, coming from the north it was very cold. By the time we had packed away we were pretty chilled, and I don’t mean “laid back”.
With the nets all closed we got on with processing birds. We had quite a few to process as, in the cold, we check the nets more frequently, as the birds are warmer in the bags than in the nets, so we had a fair backlog to process. Laura’s hubby Mark had turned up and cracked on helping me with the scribing. We finally finished processing at close to half-past-midday and set about taking down the nets and packing away. We finally left site at about 13:15
* As a postscript: I had a check on the number of Coal Tits ringed within our group since 1st January 2013 and this number of 16 is the largest number ringed ever within the group.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 