A quite remarkable month given how awful the weather has been. To put it into perspective, my team only managed four sessions, but we processed 304 birds from 16 species. 50% Blue Tit but good practice for the team!
This is the catch:
So the Group as a whole only managed 16 full sessions and we processed 921 birds from 29 species, compared to 663 from 29 last January. Ironically, we processed four species that we didn’t last year and last year we processed four species that we didn’t catch this January. We had a bigger catch of 1,241 from 33 species in 2024, but that came from 34 sessions.
Added to this January’s list were Blackcap, Corn Bunting, Redpoll and Tree Sparrow. Missing from this January’s list were Jay, Kingfisher, Linnet and Little Owl. Of course, it would have been lovely to have had those on our list this year as well.
On the whole, the key difference is the astonishing number of Blue Tits ringed: over 160 more than last year. It is far and away our largest catch of them by session than any other January. 80% of those ringed were second calendar year birds, the average is 73%. They have clearly had a good breeding season with, so far, a good survival rate over the winter to date. Other species showing improvement in numbers over last year were Coal Tit (39 vs 27) and Redwing (77 vs 16). However, there were significant declines in the catch of more species: Chaffinch (52 vs 16), Dunnock (35 vs 19 caught but, significantly, 26 ringed vs 13), Long-tailed Tit (both had 11 retrapped but ringed was 35 vs 9).
Let’s hope for an improvement in the weather in February
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 