An odd flavour of month again. Just 24 sessions managed in the month. Our own efforts were horribly affected by the weather: even though we got out six times, the last two of those were severely curtailed by the weather, with both sessions lasting barely 3 hours each. This is a long-winded way of saying that the numbers were down, but the sessional averages were up.
There were some significant differences. Added to last year’s catch were Blackcap, Firecrest, Magpie, Siskin, and Tree Sparrow. Missing from last year’s catch were Cetti’s Warbler, Green Woodpecker, Jay, Linnet and Willow Warbler.
The most remarkable catch on there were the 56 Siskin ringed and seven retrapped vs none last year. The bulk of those (38 ringed and the 7 retraps) were caught by Ian in his village, another nine near Warminster by Andy and seven by Jonny at his Sutton Benger site.
The two Firecrest were caught one at Langford Lakes and the other was a first for Webb’s Wood, much to Laura’s delight as she extracted it and processed it. That was a first for her as well. We have now caught them in every woodland of the Braydon Forest except the Firs! Two in Ravensroost Wood, two in Red Lodge and one each in Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood.
Anyway, hopefully the weather is going to improve and we will be able to get some good sessions in. One thing to note: the feeding flocks have definitely dissipated already: the average catch this March was 29.1 and the average catch in February of this year was 46.7. That said, we caught and ringed 29 species, 31 in total, whereas in February it was 26 species ringed and 26 species in total.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 