After Thursday’s disappointing session at Somerford Common, I was hoping our visit to Webb’s Wood would be a lot better: the wind had changed to a westerly and was scheduled to be 6mph, with light gusts until midday. I was joined by Pete and David: very unusual to have an all male team out, unusual to have more males than females out. Anyway, I arrived on-site at 6:20. Actually, I didn’t get to site: the usual padlock was in place but lying open on its chain, and in its place was a combination padlock to which nobody has given me a code. I thought it would be antisocial to call my contact at 6:30, so we quickly did a reverse ferret and went to the Firs. Both are on Wood Lane, so it was no real hardship.
We set up the usual nets down the centre of the Firs and were looking forward to a similar catch to our recent 56 birds from 12 species. At 8:45 we were joined for an hour by Rosie, and her friend Ella, a very keen birder (actually a genuine ornithologist and professional entomologist working in Hertfordshire, Rosie’s new stomping ground). Rosie had to head off, as she was leading a volunteer working party at Blakehill Farm but Ella stayed with us for the morning.
My worst ever sessions at the Firs were one bird, a retrapped Long-tailed Tit in April 2015; followed up be a retrapped Chaffinch in May 2015! The second worst total was two birds: two retrapped Blue Tits! This wasn’t quite as bad as that, but it wasn’t good: Nuthatch 2; Blue Tit (2); Great Tit 1(1); Wren 1(2); Dunnock (1); Blackcap (1); Chiffchaff 1. Totals: 5 birds ringed from 4 species and 7 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 12 birds processed from 7 species.
Nice to catch two new Nuthatch: one, which I haven’t put up a picture of as it is too unpleasant, was totally infested with ticks on the front of its head. There must have been a hundred or more. Absolutely tiny, like the smallest pin heads you can think of. Although I am authorised to undertake tick removal by the BTO, it would have been impossible to do everything. I removed a couple of the bigger ones but had to leave the rest as I was worried about what it would do to the bird.
So to the title: at 10:00, just as we were thinking of giving it up as a bad job, an absolute gale blew up, from absolutely nowhere. The top two nets were horribly tangled in the bramble. All the others were fine, just trees and a few little brambles, but it took us an hour to extract one, but the second we ended up cutting it out and me taking it home to extract the rest of the brambles. As a result, we stopped ringing at just gone 10:00 but still didn’t get off site until midday.
I took Ella over to Blakehill, to catch up with Rosie. She is great fun, highly knowledgeable and is welcome to join us again whenever she can make it.
Arriving at home just before 13:00, my good lady wife took the net off me and spent the afternoon removing the rest of the brambles from it. I married well!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 