It seems that Spring has finally arrived some lovely weather along with a nice clutch of migrants. I was joined for the morning by David, Laura, Adam and Pete and we set our usual nets. Mark joined us at just before 10:00, so he and Laura could head off for coffee and cake from the Dragonfly Café. When they got back, Pete thought that was a good idea, so off he went also. Fortunately, that was the time when we weren’t catching any birds! He did give us his usual hand in helping to take down.
With the nets open by 7:30 we started catching straight away. It started well with the first three rounds producing a promising 27 birds. Unfortunately, after that it just died away: another six birds between 9:00 and 9:45 and then nothing until our last round at 11:00, when we caught another two.
Now, it would be churlish to complain: we started with two Cetti’s Warbler in the first round – both unringed. Always nice.
However, the star bird of the morning was this:
I got a bit over-excited, thinking that this was our first Spring Sedge Warbler but, upon investigating when I got home and checked the database, I found that we ringed one on the same April date back in 2014, just 12 years ago. Honestly, my memory!
We didn’t have a huge number of birds but we did have a couple of male Blackbirds escape the net and a Sparrowhawk bounce off the net! The list for the session was: Nuthatch (1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1; Great Tit (2); Wren (2); Dunnock (2); Robin 2(2); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 2(1); Cetti’s Warbler 2; Sedge Warbler 1; Blackcap 6; Chiffchaff 4(2); Goldcrest (2); Bullfinch 1. Totals: 21 birds ringed from 10 species and 14 birds retrapped from 8 species, making 35 birds processed from 15 species.
An excellent variety, if not huge numbers. As mentioned, it could have been better. We also saw and heard a lot of birdlife around the site. A Yaffle made his presence known. We were hopeful that we might catch him, as we had nets set in the wildlife refuge area, which is their favourite spot and where we catch most of them. It is an area which is very difficult to walk everywhere, as it is absolutely covered with ants’ nests. Hence the interest from the Green Woodpeckers.
We watched Long-tailed Tits searching for food in the oak tree adjacent to our ringing station, a Kestrel hunting over the field behind us, and a Raven flew over, cronking away as it went.
A Great Crested Grebe was on Mallard Lake, close in, and we got some lovely close views of it diving and resurfacing. It was so close that if I had had my hand net with me we could have caught it! Next time!
A lot of the tine was spent chatting to people who were interested what we were doing. Fortunately, we did have a few birds around each time someone stopped for a chat. The best was a family of two young girls and a younger boy who got to see a female Blackbird and the lovely second-year Treecreeper.
At 11:30 we decided to check the nets and close them if there were no birds. There weren’t so we closed them up and took down. We had everything down and packed away by midday and the team left site: all except me. When I went to start the car, it wouldn’t start. I love my new(ish) car, but it has one awful feature. It is a mild hybrid, whatever that means, and if you leave the hatchback open it assumes you are going to leave soon and it switches on the electricity in the car. Even though, having been caught out with that before, we get all of the stuff out of the hatch and then shut it, it decided it didn’t want to start. Fortunately, I invested in a Ring chargeable battery some time back and have kept it in the car ever since. So a quick burst from that and everything was fine, and I was home just before 12:30.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 