With the weather being so dire at the moment, it was nice to see a forecast for Saturday that said it would be cloudy with a <5% chance of rain, so I decided that we would try Somerford Common West, which I had planned to do on Wednesday, except gale force winds made that untenable.
I was joined by David, Ellie and Pete at 7:30 t0 set up. We were also joined by Ellie Jones, my second ever trainee, now with her A-permit and a very important position at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, who came along to help and chat and catch up. Steph and her daughter, Bea, joined us at 8:45, after having dropped her other daughter, Lillie, off at work. Lillie was the youngest ever ringer I have had work with me. I believe she was 7 when she first ringed a bird!
To start with it was dry, the trees were acting as a good windbreak for most of our nets, but we couldn’t set all of them because some were too exposed. We got everything set up, took the first few birds out of the net and processed them: and then the mizzle arrived. It would run for a bit, stop for a bit, and it was simply cold, wet and miserable. (Mizzle: if it’s able makes you Mizzlyrable! I came up with that during the session: that’s how good it was!) We put up with it for an hour and then decided to call a halt to the session. Not even two hours for catching.
The small list was: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Blue Tit 1(2); Great Tit 4(7); Coal Tit 1(1); Marsh Tit (1). 6 birds ringed from 3 species and 12 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 18 birds processed from 5 species.
We left pretty much at 10:15. Still, despite the weather, as Ellie J put it, it was more of a social occasion than a ringing session and I am lucky to have such a great team of people to work with.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 