I went out to top up the feeders ready for a session on Wednesday. I was rather pleased to find a Woodcock hoovering up some of the seed under the feeder. It flew off as I approached and landed within a nearby stand of conifers, where I have seen them before. When it warms up a bit I will have a go at catching it. Anyway, I had to cancel Wednesday’s session at Somerford Common, due to a head cold, so I decided to try again this morning. At first it didn’t look as if we would manage to get out, as the forecast was for it to be -4oC today but, fortunately, the forecast changed and that it would be above freezing from 9:00. When we arrived on site at 7:30 it was -2oC and by the time we had set up it was above zero and, although one could never say it got warm, it certainly became less cold.
I was joined for the session by Laura, Adam, David and Pete, and a little later, by Claire. It was great having that many hands available to extract the birds in cold conditions. Claire scribed alongside me, with the others processing the birds.
We set our usual nets but moved the ringing station into the paddock where we have the feeding station. The reason for that is that there is a very muddy slope leading up to the feeding station area: it is either a slip hazard when it is above freezing (hence my reference to it as Sommerford Common previously), or a danger to your ankles when frozen. The case today was that we would have both situations at different times during the morning. In the event, the nets along the main path continued to catch very little and from 9:30 the nets froze, which is quite remarkable given that in the paddock area the sun had broken through and it was definitely above zero.
As expected, the catch was, once again, Blue Tit heavy. The good thing about it is that 44% of our catch today were retrapped birds: makes it cheaper for me, anyway. Unlike recent sessions, the catches were very consistent throughout, even as far as the last session, when we caught a final 18 birds. At no point were we under pressure to work through a mound of birds, breaking off to go and get the next batch from the nets, so they weren’t left out in the cold.
The list for today was: Nuthatch 2; Blue Tit 38(26); Great Tit 8(11); Coal Tit 2(3); Marsh Tit 1(4); Wren 1; Dunnock (1); Robin 3(3); Redwing 1; Chaffinch 6. Totals: 62 birds ringed from 9 species and 48 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 110 birds processed from 10 species.
It is a good start for our Marsh Tits: if we keep ringing one per session I will be very happy! But to retrap four of them ringed late last year was very pleasing. Hopefully we will see more of them over the course of this year.
One more Redwing taking our total to three this winter! We were treated to / frustrated by a couple of flocks flying overhead, but they were staying up in the tree tops. Talking of staying in the tree tops, my personal highlight was a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. It was calling from the highest tree within the stand of trees that the Woodcock had flown off to on Tuesday. It eventually flew off. We did have a Great Spotted Woodpecker come in. It flew down from the trees and headed for one of the peanut feeders! It hit the net, bounced off, hit the net again, fell into the pocket, scrabbled out, hit the net bounced off and managed to fly off!
We did our last round at 11:40 and shut the nets as we went. After processing the last birds, we took everything down and packed away: many hands make light work and we were off site by 12:30.
Driving home I had the pleasure of watching a male Sparrowhawk hunting along the hedgerow lining the minor road. It was an icy road so I was driving slowly, so I had the fun of following for about 50 metres before it broke off to follow the next hedge line.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 